Poppy Seeds
by kamihoe
Summary: Dying is only the second most moronic thing she's done. Botching up her own reincarnation, of course, is the first. OC/SI.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi guys! This is my first fanfic for One Piece, so please feel free to critique it in any way!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece in any way, shape, or form! All rights go to the wonderful Oda.**

 **Note: My character will _not_ become a Strawhat member. Also, any other OCs in the first two chapters will most likely never make a reappearance. The excessive amount of OCs in the beginning is strictly for giving Nao a backstory. **

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Life has a way of being all too ironic.

At times it ranges from average to almost humorously sad. Sometimes your best friend becomes your worst enemy. Sometimes the one section you decide not to study ends up being the one section that's tested. Sometimes the unsinkable boat sinks.

And other times, when life decides to show an irony that's plain and outright cruel, the girl who dies of a shameful alcohol poisoning incident gets reborn into a world where alcoholics essentially run, well, everything.

Of course, if asked about dying, she'd usually play ignorant. If she was in a good mood, she'd drop some sort of mystical line about death being something that a mere human could never dream of properly articulating. If she was caught in a bad mood, the poor, unfortunate soul who asked such an intrusive question would be fortunate to leave with all their limbs intact. Her reaction was justifiable though, if only to the other explorers of the sea. Death via alcohol—the staple drink of a pirate—would be something not even she—a person who would soon be notorious for grand-scale mistakes—could live down.

Strangely enough, regardless of her only meaning to deter her interrogators with that ridiculously vague reply, she'd end up being right, in a way, about death being indescribable. She'd try though (by god she would try), if the person asking was someone dear to her. She'd fumble for the right words to use to describe the hopelessness she had felt after death, grasping at straws to explain that lifetime she spent in what she'd refer to as Oblivion.

Oblivion was a place without light or darkness. It was simply nothingness; it was a void that contained nothing but her consciousness—her soul.

She didn't know exactly how long she had stayed there—couldn't even differentiate between a few months or a few years in that hell—but she knew it was long enough to drive her to the brink of insanity. She couldn't quite explain the bleakness of it all either; how she had to constantly remind herself of her former life, (Who was she, again?) despite not knowing whether or not that knowledge would ever be put to use. She could remember a few things, like the loneliness and anger (and maybe even the self-pity) that engulfed her very being, but she could never bring herself to admit that part to those who asked, even those closest to her. Her understanding of death really ended there. She could barely make a comment on whether or not there was an afterlife. (Would even the cruelest of gods place a soul under that sort of torture and call it an afterlife?)

There was, however, one thing she could say with certainty; death was not instantaneous. In her case, dying might've even taken longer than living.

There wasn't really much to tell about her first time around. She had lived a measly twenty five years on earth, barely finishing her studies in medicine before she went out like an idiot and accidentally killed herself. It happened at a party, that much she could remember. (Was it the alcohol that made her forget, or was it those years spent in Oblivion?) She had downed shot after shot, foolishly overestimating her alcohol tolerance and eventually losing count of how many drinks she had had, and when she finally lost consciousness, those around her had laughed, calling her a lightweight before leaving her to 'sober up' in an empty bedroom.

She never woke up after that—not as herself, at least.

Now that was definitely a story to tell—her life after death, that is.

It's common knowledge that the body decomposes after death, but it's not the only thing that deteriorates. The mind does, too. She theorized that it was some type of defense mechanism for the universe; something that allowed a person to pass onto the next life with a clean slate. After all, the universe(s) couldn't afford to have a bunch of bitter people running around, swearing that they'll get revenge on a world that didn't let them live long enough or well enough in a past life.

So she understood it.

But understanding it didn't equate to her obeying its purpose. She'd really rather die (again) than let her time spent fighting her inevitable erasure go to waste.

In fact, her ability to retain any sort of awareness, despite spending years upon years, (Or was it only a few seconds?) in Oblivion probably stemmed from the fact that she thought her death was fucking stupid.

Yep, faked acceptance and enlightened insight on her death aside, she was still bitter as fuck.

And what better way to express that bitterness than destroying the predetermined fate of the new world she was born into? What better way to make use of that eternity-and-a-half that she spent forcing herself to recall her memories of her former life than to use those memories to fuck shit up.

And thus came the existence of Nao, a bitter girl born to shake up a bitter world.

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 **And the intro is done! Please leave a review, it's much appreciated.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm so flattered by the positive response I've gotten! Thank you thank you thank you! Words cannot explain how overjoyed I am that you guys actually like my writing. Enjoy!**

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Her childhood, Nao thinks, was rather strange, to say the least.

Of course, some of that had to be accredited to her upbringing in the busiest whore house of the North Blue. The rest of her oddities, however, were undoubtedly to be blamed on the fact that Fate, or God, or Buddha, or whoever the hell was in charge of this whole reincarnation business, had botched it up. She had never died before, but she was fairly certain it didn't entail waking up in a new body with an old mind.

At the one month mark, her eccentricities are briefly noted, if only in the form of rumors spread throughout the red light district. A newborn child in a whore's world was already more than enough to spur the fabled (and fucking annoying) 'geisha gossip', but the outlandish behavior Nao displayed only served to further fuel their need to discuss her very existence.

Unlike most children, Nao hadn't cried much—at _all_ , in fact. (Her pride made it fucking impossible for her to display mock baby-like qualities, regardless of the suspicions that would arise because of her lack of them.) Instead, she observed, keeping the working girls under a watchful eye that held an intelligence that seemed far beyond what a child should've actually had at the time. (In actuality, this staring habit came about due to her having forgotten how to properly operate as a lump of real, warm, living flesh, as opposed to the lump of consciousness she had existed as for who knows how long. To put it simply, it was just too much of a bitch for Nao to do anything _but_ stare.)

It was nothing for the house inhabitants to truly concern themselves over, though. After all, there wasn't really a desire to become that one lunatic(the one that constantly spouted nonsense about demon-possessed children) amidst the working girls. Even _whores_ , the arguably uneducated members of society, weren't _that_ superstitious. Rather than spreading more baseless dirt on a child that could have simply been innately shy (which wasn't actually the case, but hey, whatever got them to shut up worked for Nao), they chose to ignore her tendency to look at things a little too inquisitively, and eventually, her habits became commonplace in the brothel.

She is exactly nine months old when the first real anomaly starts.

That day had begun normally enough, the usual rotation routine taking place amongst the 'sisters', as they came to refer to themselves as, as they took turns keeping an eye on Nao. Their attitudes, she had observed, had shifted away from the original tentativeness, having—dare she say it—grown fond of the docile(albeit a bit creepy) baby. Though she couldn't understand exactly what they were saying about her(they spoke in foreign tongues—Japanese perhaps—and back then, she had only been capable of understanding the commonly used phrases), but she was sure it was no longer outlandish lies. In more humorous terms, they had ceased their avoidance of her, no longer acting as if she were the second coming of the bubonic plague.

But life would have been too easy if her difficulties had ended there, and so, not long after the timid niche was found, it was destroyed—by her own thoughts nonetheless.

The sister—a girl no older than fifteen—on baby-watch duty had drifted asleep, leaving Nao to wallow in her own thoughts for a brief moment before the next girl would switch with her. It wasn't a specific movement from the young girl that triggered it, but rather a simple comment Nao had absentmindedly thought of while peering at the dozing kid through the bars of her crib.

' _Her sleeping face sort of looks like_ —' Her mind blatantly refused to complete the sentence. She scrunched her nose up as she futilely tried to finish her thought. ' _ **Who**_?'

Nao's face bore a look of utter confusion for the slightest of moments, one that was instantaneously exchanged for an expression filled to the brim with unshakable horror as her mind finished the blank with an unrelenting chant that sent her reeling back into that godforsaken Oblivion( _sistersister_ _littlesister_ _little_ _sist_ _ **er**_ _ **sister**_ _ **sister sISTERSISTERSISTER**_ ). The vocalization of the distress immediately followed—the walls of the compound flooding with the uncharacteristic wails of a habitually mute child, while her mind was similarly engulfed by a feeling of pure dread and fear and wretchedness and _resentment_ that felt so familiar and yet so foreign, a prospect that seemed near impossible because _how the fuck_ could she have forgotten the feeling of wrath from which her very existence had come. Terror had swallowed her up whole in that moment, steadily blurring the edges of her vision before finally rendering her unconscious.

She is nine months and a day old when she, while waking up in the aftermath of the chaos she caused(she'd never seen so many dignified women throw away their pride to sleep on the floor of her nursery), swears—for the sake of all she persevered through while in Oblivion—to never again let that fury die out.

She is one when she realizes just how much shit she is in.

The working girls had reverted back to their original stance on her presence by then, consistently tiptoeing around in fear of setting the now-toddler into another tantrum.

At that point she had begun to walk, having taken her first few teetering steps a month beforehand. (Nao had been far too bored and far too exasperated to put off learning how to walk any longer, normal walking age be damned.) The girls continued to take turns watching Nao, though now they lingered a couple steps behind her as she explored the house, as if frightened by her. It was pretty fucking annoying, to say the least. In their eyes, she had devolved from the second coming of the bubonic plague to the physical manifestation of the Devil himself. Any qualms against being overly superstitious had been thrown out the window by the brothel tenants, a fact proven by the new surplus of crosses that decorated the building. It might've been funny, (because who the fuck would hang up a cross in a business that relied and profited on sinners?) had they not been specifically placed there to ward away the demons that were rumored to have possessed her.

Even Mama-san, the ever so rational owner of the brothel, approached her precariously, despite being the one who had initially _agreed_ to raise Nao after her birth giver(she refused to refer to a woman who was younger than her, regardless of their physical ages, as her _Mother_ ) had died after childbirth. Had her muscles been developed enough, Nao would have rolled her eyes at the house's antics.

Paranoid prostitutes aside, Nao— as much as she hated to admit it— _was_ partly to blame for their skewed perception of her.

She had continued to unabashedly display non-childlike behaviors—if not even more so than before—seeing that her muscles no longer suffered under the Oblivion-induced atrophy, though nothing compared to the quirks she would develop _after_ 'that day'.

'That day'—the day she had learned exactly where she was—had begun with an air of uncertainty. Her usual babysitters were nowhere to be seen—a rather odd phenomenon when her freshly discovered walking skills were taken into account. (Because what kind of moronic, shitty adult leaves a kid—a kid who was now finally capable of running off—alone?) It truly baffled her. Even her past-life self—young adult unreliability and all—had taken special care in keeping a keen eye on toddlers under her supervision. Children were unpredictable enough _without_ being the product of a shitty reincarnation job.

With an insatiable curiosity(and no worrisome girls to stop her), Nao had waddled her way out of her nursery, heading towards the source of the commotion that had drawn the attention of all the sisters. (It obviously had to have been something _huge_. Most of the whores she had met up until that point had been fazed by nothing, save for demons and losing money.)

She had stood at the doorway of Mama-san's office, hidden behind the steadily growing crowd of fretful working girls who had gathered around a single _snail_ of all things. For a moment she had wondered if she had finally succumbed to the perpetually looming threat of insanity, because as odd as the sight itself was, the deja vu feeling that came along with it was the cherry on top. She had no chance to further pick at her allegedly diminishing lucidity though, as the snail began to fucking _talk_.

Despite the room being occupied by a headcount that exceeded way beyond the area's holding capacity(the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would have had a heart attack, had they seen it), not a word from the snail (the fucking _snail_ ) was missed. (Then again, who _wouldn_ 't give their undivided attention to a speaking _snail_?)

" _Want my ultimate treasures? It's possible._ " A semi-familiar voice had broken through the static, almost causing the planet itself to cease motion.

" _I will give them to those who can find them. I have gathered everything in this world and have already hidden them in 'that place.'_ "

" _Zan!_ " The sickening sound of metal slicing flesh replaced the jubilant voice as its owner's words sank in across the globe, and while excited shouts rang out from the radio after the man's proclamation had settled in, the women of the brothel fell into a stunned, stony silence.

"Kami help us," a sister muttered under her breath, jaw clenched in an odd mixture of annoyance and fear.

Nao was conflicted.

99% of her told her to hightail her way out of the steadily despairing room, as she was _pretty_ _sure_ someone had just been publicly _executed_. The remaining 1% of her (the part that was probably more curious than what was recommended for those who planned on living a long life) begged her to continue eavesdropping (and it isn't hard to guess which option her shitty-decision-making self picked). She figured if she had already fallen that deep into shit, she might as well stay and be enlightened on the above-mentioned shit. She had been certain that all she needed was one more nudge to recall where she had recognized the voice from, so what harm could a few more moments spent in the room have done?

Life's reply to that rhetorical question did not disappoint.

While she had debated the pros and cons of her two options(which required her staying in place to do so anyways), Mama-san's face had grown grim.

"That absurd man—always doing whatever he liked." Mama-san sighed, pausing to shake her head in disapproval.

An inexplicable feeling of anxiety had washed over Nao before Mama-san had even finished.

"Gol D. Roger."

It took a few seconds for her uncharacteristically hazy mind to connect all the dots. She had searched through her memory—old and new—knowing damn well she had heard that name before, before it finally clicked.

Oh. (Fate was probably fucking her up on purpose, at this point.)

 _Oh_. (Scratch that. Fate had _definitely_ turned screwing Nao over into a personal mission.)

She had recognized the voice, alright, though it wasn't exactly what she had expected. She thought it might've turned out to be someone she had met in her previous life, or perhaps even a customer she might have overheard during her time at the brothel, or really, anyone other than a fucking character that _shouldn't_ _even_ _exist_ —and one from a manga she had read in _literally_ another life, at that!

And consequently, caused by the downright illogicality of the clusterfuck that is her life, Nao is also one when she utters her first word.

"Shit."

At one and a half, Nao makes the jump from a passive complainer to someone actively giving Fate the middle finger. (Naturally, she also sparks more demon-child rumors along the way.)

She had, to some extent, wrapped her head around her circumstance, though she still hadn't fully grasped the direness of her situation. Putting it mildly, she had merely accepted it enough to function and plot.

By then muscles in her hand had finally started listening to her brain, giving her a level of dexterity that was more akin to the one she had been capable of as she trained to be a surgeon in her previous life. She couldn't quite preform a heart bypass surgery yet, but she could write—a skill that seemed a lot more useful than the former, in her situation.

And write, she did.

She wrote down everything—grasping at straws to document every known memory she had left in an attempt to prepare for a fight against Fate. She wrote of her family and dearest friends first, forcing her shaky toddler body to write as neatly as possible(which really wasn't neat at all).

In her twenty-first month as Nao, she finishes documenting any remains of the memories of those cherished by her, and starts jotting down what little she can remember of the events that had played out in the One Piece world.

The working girls of the house had noticed her latest quirk, though none made an effort to stop it. Sure, they knew(or at the very least, speculated) that it was some sort of comprehensible writing(something far beyond what a normal toddler should be able to do), but it was written in gibberish(in reality, it was English, but English grammar rules were more than rubbish enough to classify the language as gibberish), and they really didn't have the time—or the want—to be translating a toddler's potentially nonsensical writings(they were still busy worrying over the repercussions of Roger's words), and so they settled to simply discuss it among themselves.

And so, over the course of several months, Nao had gone on, her actions unimpaired as she listed every known moment of significance that came to mind.

Because Nao, as fucked as she probably was, had a plan.

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 **I have the third chapter planned out and half-written. If things go as planned, it'll _probably_ be uploaded in 3-4 days. This was the last chapter without any direct interaction with canon characters. Please leave a review, if you have the time! Have a lovely day, guys. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow! Again, thank you guys so much for the reviews and wonderful feedback. I literally cannot tell you guys how happy I am right now. This chapter is a tad bit longer. Enjoy!**

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The real story, however, truly begins when Nao is three.

Despite the terror that had gripped the brothel's sisters like an iron fist after Roger's challenge to the world, another year passes without incident. Sure, there had been an increase in newcomers to the island—most of them pirates—but no one bothered to bring trouble to mere whores. (Because how much of a shithead does a person have to be to kick people who are already down?) The majority of the island's visitors simply wanted to dock and restock on supplies before entering the Grand Line.

Perhaps it was Fate's way of accepting Nao's challenge—giving her time to vaguely plan out her moves—or maybe it was pure luck.

Yet, as per usual, tides change, newcomers enter, and normalcy fluctuates, bringing with them the ugliness that is, more often than not, intertwined with living.

But there was no way Nao could've known that her actions were going to fuck her over even more, especially after a year of tranquility, and so, on a gloomy day in March, she tiptoes out of the compound, walking right past her sleeping babysitter without incident. (Apparently, whores had a bad case of narcolepsy too.)

The boredom that she had efficiently fought off with the creation of her sloppily put together collection of notes ended when she finished the novel-length garbage six months ago, giving herself quite the issue as she had no idea where the fuck she could go from there. Most—if not all—of her plans had having more mobility than a toddler as a prerequisite, and no amount of divine fuck ups could get her around that hurdle. There was little she could do but wait her toddler years out, preoccupying her time with unintentional mischief, i.e.; her new sneaking out routine.

The initial walk is placid enough. Almost no notice is given to her—the district having grown used to seeing the whore house's residential toddler. The only stares she receives are from outsiders, and even those are momentary, as none speak up in fear of displaying foreigner's ignorance. Nao almost laughs at the shitty, non-acting bystander display of 'When in Rome.'

It's the walk back that screws her over.

She is no more than fifty yards away from the brothel's entrance when a hand grabs ahold of her shoulder, jerking her around to face the owner of the aforementioned hand.

"Hey, kid, are you lost?" The stranger—a middle aged man with an alarmingly fake smile plastered on his face—grabbing her shoulder crouches down to even out their eye levels, using a faux honeyed tone that might have charmed her had she not been a sour twenty-something year old's shitty reincarnation.

"No, I'm heading home," Nao answers curtly. She tries to pull her arm away, only to have her attempts be met with the tightening of his grip.

"Don't be hasty. We have a few treats in our ship at the harbor. Would you like to get some and bring them back for your onee-sans?" His words are spoken softly, a striking contrast to the indiscernible glint in his eyes.

"No thank you. Please let go of my arm," she insists, making another effort at escaping his hold. Her heart feels as if its about to burst out of her chest as the man's face morphs from one of gentleness to one of greed.

She's seen that expression before. (Rapacity had appeared more often than she'd have liked to admit during her time interning at a local hospital. Too many struggling—and shitty—adults seemed perfectly content with having their parents die off for a wretched inheritance.)

"Come on, kid, let's go." He violently tugs at her wrist this time, ditching his helpful stranger act.

She opens her mouth to yelp at the sudden display of cruelty, but her cry is cut short by the man's hand clamped over it. He forces her head down while dragging her away from the frustratingly close brothel, obscuring her face from the few who might have recognized her. (Her usual pattern of staying inside the stupid whore house and out of the district's inhabitants' line of sight is _really_ starting to bite her in the ass right now. Who the fuck is gonna save her if she ends up stuck as a slave in another sea?)

A bad concoction of panic and adrenaline courses through her veins as she considers the viable choices that would, at the very least, probably keep her alive. _Probably_. There was option A: let herself be shipped to god knows where and have her entire revenge plot be fucked over, or, alternatively, option B: fight while simultaneously praying to every merciful divine being out there that the man was someone too egoistical to bring a weapon with him during his child snatching adventures

She doesn't need much time to reach a conclusion there.

In a rush of stupidity or desperation(or both, she can't really tell the difference between the two anymore), she bites, using the only strong muscle in her body(because toddlers, unfortunately, don't tend to have gorging biceps) to sink her teeth into the man's flesh, successfully drawing out a pained yowl from the man. Coppery blood fills her mouth until she is almost choking on the thick liquid, but she doesn't concede as she embeds her bloodstained, not-so-pearly whites further into his hand. Her jaw momentarily loosens as she opens it up to prepare for another bite, drawing out a satisfactory _crunch_ as she mauls his hand—overcome by some sort of ravenous need to _fight_ because, so help her God, she was _never_ going to let herself get fucked over again without a struggle.

But, as quickly as it had began, Nao's vicious attack is countered with an equally vicious response from the man as the shock of the assault wears off. Out of pure spite for her, the man jerks her off of the ground to increase the probability of damage done to her body as he flings her back onto the gravelly road. Upon impact, she involuntarily lets out something between a grunt and a shout, unable to brace herself for the landing. Sickening cracks resound from her crumpled figure as it hits the ground, drawing the attention of those around them, but not a single person steps in to end the brutal beat down.

She wants to scream at the godawful show of 'not my child, not my business', but her outrage at the inaction is just a _little_ hard to display with a grown man's foot _digging into her back._ After what feels like another eternity, the pressure on her spine eases, and for a fleeting moment she thinks that maybe—just _maybe_ —the man has taken pity on her, but as quickly as they had arisen, her hopes, along with what feels like most of her organs, are crushed as the fucking mongrel kicks her already aching body, sending her flying another yard.

She lands face down, dirt and pebbles mixing with the vile blood(was it hers or his?) in her mouth. She is barely given the time to lift the top half of her body off of the ground before his shoes enter her peripheral vision. Mustering every bit of the foolish pride that had accumulated in her over the course of two lifetimes, she forces her head up to meet his glare, gracing herself with the sight of his hand moving to strike her down. She automatically flinches, tightly squeezing her eyes shut and bracing for a hit that never comes.

What?

The hushed whispers of the steadily growing crowd turn to unabashed comments as they catch sight whatever the hell stopped the man's hand. Too curious to remain blind to the world(she _really_ needed to learn how to curb that curiosity of hers), Nao tentatively opens her eyes, only to see a man standing so close that he is almost on top of her. What shocks her, though, is not the sudden appearance of her savior, but rather the words written across the jacket draped over his shoulders.

' _Justice_ '.

A marine.

But not just any marine. (Fate must really get a kick out of messing her life up in a million different ways) There's no mistaking it—not even after her years spent in the solitary confinement of Oblivion. The greyed hair and the all too wide grin couldn't belong to anyone else but him.

Vice Admiral Garp. (For fuck's sake, when she had said she didn't want her plans to meet a premature end, she hadn't meant for them to meet a premature start, either.)

"Has Mama-san taken to letting her brats run around?" He turns towards her, his (fucking huge) hand still holding back the attacker.

She mutely shakes her head, petrified for reasons unknown to her. She had known her situation was real, but now it seemed a little too real for her tastes. (For a brief moment, she considers going back to the brothel and following her mother's footsteps in being a whore, because _fuck this._ )

"Rosinante, take the brat back to her brothel and wait for me there. This will only take a minute."

 _Rosinante?_

The appearance of blond hair in her field of vision seals it. If she wasn't already beforehand, she is so much more fucked now.

"Hey, kid, can you walk? I'm gonna bring you back home while Garp-san deals with the scum," the man coaxes her to take his outstretched hand, mistaking her tremors as a result of the events that had transpired. In reality, she's quivering because she is certain that the universe will implode the second she touches someone who isn't just cannon fodder.

Fortunately, it doesn't. (The walk home is so unnervingly normal that she is certain that she's about to die— _again_.)

Behind her, she can hear the piece of shit assailant insisting on his innocence. It's so ridiculous that she almost laughs. (And she would've—if her entire body hadn't felt like it just got shoved through a meat grinder.) How does someone try to play off kicking a three year old's ass?

"What a moron..." Rosinante mutters, voicing her thoughts aloud.

She nods in agreement, though he's too distracted with a piercing screech from the sisters to see the concurring motion. Was the compound always that close?

For a moment, standing there in the courtyard of the compound, she is utterly bewildered. Why the hell was everyone looking at her like she just came straight out of the grudge movie? Then, as the taste of blood reregisters in her brain, accompanied by the ever-so-lovely gritty texture of dirt, she recalls why. She looks like the epitome of shit, and, to their credit, she probably would've screamed if she saw herself too.

"Nao?! What the hell happened?!" a sister exclaims, shoving Rosinante aside and cupping her cheek.

Nao winces as the touch agitates a scrape she hadn't even realized she had gotten. Before she can speak and explain the situation, Rosinante, while looking rather peeved at the working girls, beats her to it. (Silly her, how could she have forgotten that most people don't assume that three year olds have the mental capacity to spew well put together sentences out of their ass.)

"She—Nao, was it?—was trying to get away from some man—a human trafficker, probably. Garp-san stepped in and is taking care of it right now. Do you know where we can find Mama-san? We were _supposed_ to be headed to the Marine HQ, but Garp-san insisted on making an appearance here," he says the last part with a hint of annoyance.

Call it a sudden premonition, but _something_ tells her that this isn't the first time Garp acted on his whims.

"And what does Garp-san want with an old woman like me?" Mama-san's voice rings throughout the courtyard, drawing everyone's attention towards her figure slowly hobbling out the main building's door.

"Mama-san? An old woman? You don't look a day over forty!" Garp's exuberant voice enters the fray, bring everyone's head turning back towards the entrance. It's comical, really—the way everyone is moving in unison in correspondence with their two voices.

"Stop the flattery, what do you want?" Mama-san replies flatly, clearly used to the man's antics.

"I need a favor."

"No." Her response comes so fast, it's almost like it was preplanned.

"You haven't even heard my request yet."

"Do you think I was born yesterday? The last favor you asked of Sengoku is now a tale parents tell their children to warn them about reading the fine print."

"Mama-san." His voice loses all humor. (Nao can't tell if it's his intimidating aura that's making her nauseous, or her having just gotten back from being kicked around like a beanbag.)

Finally, Mama-san relents. "Ten minutes. Then you're gone. I don't want any of my customers being scared away by you marines."

The jubilant tone makes its unwanted return. "Great!" He turns to address the blond. "Rosinante, keep watching the kid, alright?"

"What? Garp-san! Why can't she just stay he—" While in the process of chasing after his haphazard boss, his protest is cut short by a less-than-graceful fall. Before he can make a recovery and continue after the man, the screen door is slammed shut, ending all chance of any refusal of the order.

The sisters glance at each other before nodding, collectively labeling the man as a non-threat to their little sister. One by one they walk off—either back to their rooms or onto the streets to find more customers.

"There's a dango shop across the street," one adds helpfully, daintily stepping over Rosinante's body and opening the screen door to get inside, only to close it in his face again.

"But what about her appearance? They're gonna think that _I'm_ the one who was kicking her around!" he argues weakly, knowing that nothing he could say was gonna take Nao out of his hands.

"If they can handle _watching_ it happen without doing anything, they can handle seeing her face _after_ it happened too," another one huffs, this time walking out of the compound grounds.

Eventually, all that's left in the courtyard is a brooding Rosinante and an aching Nao.

"Well," he sighs, avoiding looking at Nao's swelling scrapes, "dango it is."

In no more than five minutes, they find themselves seated in a small, homely shop—one completely out of place for a red light district. (This world was fucking weird. 'Let me go buy a few whores and other ungodly things before sipping green tea.' Who the hell does that?)

"This dango is good." She froze the moment the words left her lips. Trying to make conversation had been an automatic response to the awkward air around them, and was probably good in all other situations, save for the ones where she's _actually trying to act like a fucking kid for once._

Rosinante chokes on the scalding hot tea. (Though she can't tell if it's from the shock of hearing a three year old speak articulately or just his clumsiness acting up again.) "You can talk?"

"I never said I couldn't."

This conversation was sounding eerily similar to one he'd have later on, though she wouldn't tell him that.

"W-What? Why didn't you just speak up twenty minutes ago when your sisters were asking for the details on what happened?"

She blinks. "Because you cut me off."

"I... I see."

They lapse into silence again, though this one is considerably less strained. (On Rosinante's side, at least.)

Nao, on the other hand, was freaking the _fuck_ out. Half of her wanted to jumpstart her plan just for the hell of it. The other (sensible)half was telling her to slow her roll. Again, it's not hard to guess which one her impulsive, shitty mind chose.

"Are you a good guy, or a marine?" she asks bluntly.

He's clearly taken aback. "Nao, marines _are_ the good guys."

She shakes her head in a childlike manner, her dirt-filled hair following the movement, before offering her rebuttal. "Then what about what's gonna happen in Ohara?"

He freezes, changing his relaxed stance to a defensive one. "How do you—"

"Geisha gossip is very interesting," she lies, cutting him off. "That's why the rest of your fleet isn't with you and Garp, right? They're all watching... Olvia-san, and you're all going to go hurt the other scholars."

Her breath hitches as he snaps his fingers. (Oh fuck oh fuck oh _fuck_. Maybe acting early wasn't that great of an idea.)

" _Silent_." All sound from the outside is gone.

Instead of killing her right on the spot, he starts to address her calmly. "Nao, they have very dangerous abilities that could hurt a lot of people." (She had to give him a few brownie points for not slitting her throat right then and there.)

But (because she _fucking loves_ taking her safety and life for granted) she doesn't take the opportunity to shut the fuck up, and opens her mouth to speak again.

"But they haven't. They've been around for who knows how long and they haven't. Admirals have the ability to kill a bunch of people too, but they haven't, and you would execute them if they did, but you haven't, because they haven't, so why would you kill the scholars in Ohara if they haven't done anything yet?" she says it all in one breath, breathing heavily by the end of it.

Rosinante flinches at her casual mention of executions. "I'm not the one who gives the orders."

"But you're gonna kill your _comrade_." Fuck. She didn't mean to reveal that much.

"What? What do you mean?" he asks, taken aback at such an outlandish claim.

She shakes her head, tightly clenching her jaw shut to indicate that not another word was going to leave her mouth(because even she had some faint sense of self preservation).

"Rosinante, Garp-san and I are finished speaking. He said he'll be waiting for you on the ship." Mama-san's entrance into the room breaks his concentration, reinstating sound into the small dango shop before he could interrogate Nao further.

"Ah, I'll... go then. Bye, Nao-chan." He adds an endearing suffix to her name to lighten the mood before making his way out—not before tripping of course.

Nao can't believe it.

She really just exposed herself to a fucking klutz.

* * *

 **Third chapter down! Next chapter will probably mark the last appearance of any of the brothel OCs. Please leave a review if you have the time! I love hearing what you guys think of each chapter. Have a wonderful day! Next chapter will be up in 5-7 days.**


	4. Chapter 4

**So so so so _so_ sorry for the delay! I had an exam to study for and I couldn't bring myself to write while doing so. I promise the next chapter won't take nearly as long to finish.**

 **THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 50 FOLLOWS.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.**

* * *

"Run." A burned hand is pressed against her back, urging her to move move _move_.

"But Mama-san is still inside the compound!" she protests to no avail, the person pushing her—a sister—having already picked her up and continued running, clutching onto a small satchel filled with everything that she could grab.

Everything (and _everyone_ ) is burning.

The sound of glass shattering behind her sends the sister diving, Nao still held protectively in her arms. She doesn't understand—unable to even begin comprehending how her formerly tranquil(albeit bitter) life had gone so wrong.

Her efforts at preventing the Ohara incident had essentially failed, the only difference being the news that Jaguar D. Saul's body had gone unrecovered—the island having burned down too quickly for marines to confirm his death. Other than that, all the things from the original storyline had gone accordingly—as in, Nico Robin was still a fugitive, and the world was still made up of pieces of shit.

But that isn't why she's running.

The small, homely dango shop in which Nao had confronted Rosinante in hadn't been so small and homely after all. With word of Robin's bounty spreading—and money being offered for even the slightest pieces of new information given to the world government—a person who heard Nao utter the word ' _Ohara_ ' had tipped them off, instantly sending a fleet of marines(also known as a fucking death sentence) towards their island.

The citizens in the main village were swiftly evacuated as marines made their move, leaving those deemed dispensable(as in all the whores who didn't have a family, or even a real name) to fall victim to their chaos. Without rhyme or reason, they had stormed the brothel, shoving and pushing and _shooting_ the girls in their way, disregarding their cries for mercy.

Immediately Nao had been rushed out of harm's way, and now here she was, face down in dirt(yet again) and bleeding profusely.

"Nao, go without me. The harbor is just a little distance away," the sister commands, choking on smoke, unable to get herself back onto her feet.

But Nao doesn't move, too transfixed on something that had fallen onto the ground.

It's a small, metallic pocket mirror, probably one that had fallen out of a civilian's pocket while they had been evacuating, but it isn't the intricate design(or how much she could sell the useless decorative object for) that entrances her. It's what she, for the first time ever, sees inside the object.

Herself.

For years she had avoided glancing in mirrors—too afraid to see the proof that the girl she once was was dead for reasons unbeknownst to her—but now all her efforts at dodging her reflection had gone to shit(along with the rest of her life).

Because she sees it—sees something that should be dead deaddeAD. Except she doesn't. She does, but she doesn't, because it isn't her that she notices in the reflection, but someone else—someone else, but also her. Gone is the doe-eyed brunette that she once was in a past life, and in her place is a daintier girl with skin too porcelain and eyes too sharp and hair too black to be hers. Pure dread consumes her very being because the girl she was is gone ( _gonEGONE everyone she loves—her sistersister sISTER_ ) and no amount of struggling could ever bring that girl back. The hopelessness is so harrowing—so _ghastly_ —that once more she is unwillingly sent spiraling down into the screams of agony that she had only let loose once before. Obscenities in a language that was never meant to exist in this world slip out of her mouth as she _screeches_ for every bit of sanity left in her to recollect itself.

Hands—ones too big to be that of the sister—clamp around her mouth, rendering her mute as tremors shake her body.

She is out cold before she catch a glimpse of her silencer.

She comes to in a place so serene that she doubts whether or not she's really conscious. (The gentle rocking of the sea that she had only felt once long ago brings back faint glimmers of memories, the ghosts of a precious person's— _brother? nephew? friend's?_ —laughter ringing in her ear.)

Shaking her head, she pushes irrelevant images away. Reminiscing was useless now anyways.

"H-Hello?" she calls out hoarsely, alarmed at how raw her throat feels.

The person who replies to her is neither the sister nor the person who had efficiently shut her up(because, as far as she could remember, the hand that had been glued over her mouth had not been an startling shade of pink). Instead, it was a very small, but very familiar fishman that answered her tentative call.

"H-Hi," Hatchan stutters back. ( _Fuck_. It's just one deterrent after the next, isn't it? What the fuck was the point of having a plan if every corner she turned just resulted in a new clusterfuck of chaos?)

Her face doesn't betray how dismayed she really is.

"Where am I?" She decides to go for the most direct approach, recalling that this particular character was rather dense.

"On a boat," he states the obvious.

Before she can open her mouth and make a (regrettable) comment about how painfully clear that fact already was, another person enters the conversation.

"We're currently heading towards reverse mountain," the newcomer helpfully explains, fondly placing a hand atop Hatchan's head as he does so.

Long, wavy greyed hair; a distinctive scar running from his brow to his cheek. The fright she felt during her previous run ins with other influential characters paled in comparison to the complete horror that had currently washed over her. He is far more intimating in person—exuding an aura that paralyzed her without even trying to.

But that's just the man he is—Silvers Rayleigh.

"O-Oh," she unintentionally stutters, recoiling as far back as she can into a bed that suddenly feels a lot more like a constraint. She is almost too terrified to inquire further, but her confusion bests her fear. "Why?"

He offers a smile radiating with warmth, and her stomach sinks. She's seen that expression before—in a past life. (A woman— _aunt? mother? sister?_ —crouched down, beaming at a small child while explaining that their brother had gone somewhere unreachable.)

"Your onee-san was very insistent on protecting you from any falling debris. She's—" Rayleigh pauses when his coddling tone is received by a blank stare.

"She's dead?" Her question is concise and to the point, paired with an unnervingly desensitized expression. Sure, there's some sort of sadness dwelling in her mind, but something doesn't allow her to grieve. The situation—from rebirth to now—is still incomprehensible to her. What differentiates her 'sisters' from other cannon fodder? What makes them more real than other _characters_ in the world? She might've looked deeper into how she really felt, had she had the time back then, but the clearing of Rayleigh's throat drew her out of the frighteningly cold thoughts, and back into the surreal situation.

The babying voice is gone now. "No. She hasn't passed, but she isn't looking all that good either. We're both lucky that Hachi here has good hearing." He pauses to grin at the fishman, playfully patting his head. "This kid just dragged me out of my own mess a couple days ago."

Nao doesn't know what to say. (What the fuck _could_ she say? ' _Oh, yeah, I already know about that, because you see, powerful guy who could probably kill me with a glance, I'm a dimension-transcending, fucked up reincarnation, who has an alarmingly bad habit of stumbling upon people that I should probably stay far away from, for both their sake and mine._ ' Nao's clueless, but she isn't that clueless.) She settles for another weak 'Oh.'

The room falls into a prolonged silence as neither of its occupants really know what to say next.

"Nao, right?" He clears his throat again. (If she were in the mood to be a sarcastic little shit, she might've teasingly offered a cough drop, but seeing as she was nowhere near as suicidal as one would need to be to try the Roger Pirate's first mate's patience, she refrains.)

"Yes." Her voice is uncharacteristically quiet, the pain in her throat being too unbearable to raise it any higher. (Maybe _she_ ' _s_ the one who really needs the cough drop.)

"I've got your bag, but I'm not sure if everything's there. It's probably better than nothing." He looks at Hachan again. "Hachi, can you fetch me her bag?"

Hatchan perks at this, eager to leave.

When the door closes, the mood shifts once more, along with the look on Rayleigh's face. In place of the fond smile he had been giving the fishman is a much more amused one—like that of someone who knows something that others don't.

"So you're the brat who has every marine in the vicinity scrambling towards a brothel." It sounds like less of a question and more of stated fact.

"Unfortunately," she drawls, momentarily forgetting whose presence she's in. (She really needed to learn how to shut up.)

He doesn't seem put off by her strange attitude though. (Then again—considering all the weird shit that occupies the Grand Line—she doesn't think a smart-mouthed kid would surprise her too much either, if she were Rayleigh.) Instead, her remark is met with a guffaw.

"You've got that right. You damn near got me killed." More laughter ensues—something pretty odd when its over his own near-death experience. (What the fuck was up with strong people being content with their own demise?)

"Sorry." The apology is said out of reflex. Growing up in a brothel(as god awful as it sounds) did teach her a thing or two about being well mannered. Then she does a double take. How the hell did he find out that she was the one who accidentally got a siege called on a (normally) tranquil port town? "How'd you know that?"

"Don't worry about it, kid. I don't think anything could kill me after the years I spent half-dying with that man anyways." His own jab triggers another chuckle before he addresses her question. "About you bringing a mini apocalypse on Yorokobi Island?"

She reluctantly nods. (It was true, but she didn't want to actually _admit_ it.)

"I found out that Garp was asking Mama-san for a favor. Figured it had something to do with my captain's unfinished business, so I went to check it out. Don't know how it happened, but I ended up in a bar and heard marines talking about some brothel brat mentioning Ohara."

His explanation makes a lot more sense than she originally thought it would.

"Why are we heading towards reverse mountain?"

"Your onee-san has some pretty bad burns, and I'm fairly banged up myself. Fighting was a bit difficult while carrying the two of you, or maybe I've just gotten old, who knows?" He wryly shakes his head at his own quip. "I don't know the first thing about medicine, but I've got a friend at Twin Cape who does, so this is probably our best bet. Yorokobi Island's only a day's voyage away from reverse mountain, and you've nearly been out for that long, so we'll be there in another hour or two."

Her attention is stuck on the first half of his response. "You're injured?"

He lifts his cloak and shirt, revealing blood-soaked bandages underneath. "I guess you could say that," he jokes.

Hatchi chooses this moment to reenter the cabin, eyes widened as he catches sight of Rayleigh's wound.

"Eh?! You're still bleeding? We just changed the bandages!" Hatchi exclaims, running to drop the bag onto the bed before hurrying back to Rayleigh to examine the wound. "I'll go get more bandages!" He declares.

Before either Nao or Rayleigh could tell Hatchan that there was no dire need for more bandages, he's already out the door.

"You just changed them?" Nao asks, blinking at soaked bandages with an indiscernible look on her face.

"Yeah, but it probably isn't too bad. Crocus is used to fixing me up anyways." The paleness of his skin contradicts his nonchalant attitude.

Nao ignores his dismissal of the injury. Even without her medical training, the excessive loss of blood was as clear as day. She doesn't particularly want to further expose herself by helping him, but she's pretty sure she'd rather do that than have to deal with a bled-out corpse on the boat. "Do you have a lighter?"

"Aren't you a bit too young to be a smoker?" He raises an eyebrow at the demand, but complies anyways, pulling one out of his pocket and tossing it to her.

It lands on her lap while she's reaching for her bag, throwing her hand in there and rummaging for something. A few seconds tick by before her concentrated expression lightens up as she grabs ahold of the cold, smooth object.

It's the pocket mirror that sent her into a fit of wails the first time around.

"Unwrap the bandages. We have to cauterize it before you bleed out." Before he can protest to a child tending to his wounds, Nao is already off her bed and walking towards him. In a matter of seconds the lighter is lit and held near the metallic covering of the mirror, and Rayleigh finds himself on the receiving end of an expectant stare.

"Are you sure you're certified to do this?" He snorts at the ridiculousness of it all, but adheres to her order anyways, most likely presuming that a child with a lighter couldn't do much anyways.

His underestimation is countered by a searing pain near his lower abdomen, right where one of the stray bullets had pierced him as he had tried escaping.

"What the hell are you—" he cuts his own outcry short when he sees the wound closing up. "Oh."

She rolls her eyes. "Crocus-san is going to have to reopen that to get the bullet out, but it should suffice for now. The excessive bleeding is probably 'cause the bullet grazed your common iliac artery, but this will have to do until we reach Twin Cove."

"Are you sure you're a kid?" Rayleigh asks, another eyebrow raised as Nao tosses the lighter back at him. "Or did you just eat that damned Hobi Hobi no Mi?"

"Isn't trying to stop the bleeding common sense?" she answers his question with one of her own, heading back towards the bed. Guilt gnaws at her for not checking up on the sister too, but if burns were the extent of her injuries, there was really nothing that she could do.

"Probably." He chooses not to press further and laughs again, and suddenly Nao is wondering why the hell she was ever scared of the irresponsible man in the first place. His stupidly overpowering presence did little to hide how non-intimidating his personality really was.

Comforted by this, a part of her wants to succumb to her body's insistent need for more sleep after the various rushes of adrenaline it had received(running away from the second-coming of hell and waking up in a boat with more characters who could kill her with a glance tended to give quite the rush to the average person), but there was still one thing that bothered her.

"Do you know if the people at the brothel are okay?" She asks, despite already knowing what the answer probably is. Last she saw of the other sisters, they were being tossed around like rag dolls, courtesy of the marines.

"Isn't that obvious?" She feels herself visibly deflating before his entire reply is even said. "Of course they are."

"I—wait, what?" She whips her head up to look at him in shock.

"It's _the_ Mama-san's brothel. Don't you know? It's hard to name a single person out on the seas who she _doesn_ ' _t_ have dirt on. Whichever marine barged in their first is gonna get quite the lecture from their higher ups." A bemused smirk settles on his lips.

"Oh thank god," she mumbles, eyelids feeling a lot heavier than they were a few moments ago. "Can you wake me up when we're near reverse mountain?"

"I don't think you'll need me to wake you up once we get there." His face dons a mischievous grin, but Nao is already out like a light.

The door quietly closes as he walks off to find the fretting fishman.

* * *

 **Woooo! Were any of you guys expecting that? Hint: Looking at the One Piece timeline help a lot with guessing what Nao's next move is. She's with freakin' Rayleigh though! Even I'm excited to write this bit, and I'm the writer.**

 **Next chapter will be out in 5-6 days, maybe less if I have crazy levels of motivation. Sorry this one is so short.**

 **As always, please leave a review if you have the time! Have a wonderful day. :)**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece

* * *

Rayleigh (unsurprisingly) turns out to be right about the whole not needing to try to wake her up thing.

One jolt renders her wide awake. A second lands her on the floor at the foot of the bed, groaning as she nurses her bruised, aching body. From outside the cabin, she can hear the sounds of a storm terrorizing the boat, waves making the damned thing more than just a little unstable.

Her head is spinning as she shoves herself off of the ground, only for the floor to seemingly slip from beneath her feet. An obscenity in a foreign language rolls off her tongue as her knees hit the wood panels.

Despite her apparent dizziness, her mind no longer feels as hazy as it had been when she had first come to, and she glances around with a newfound sense of clarity. She didn't know if it was the work of a God or the work of the Devil, but somehow she had ended up sailing towards the Grand Line with Rayleigh. Her plan is shattered to pieces at this point, no doubt, but she could improvise.

She has to improvise.

At this resolve, she makes a second attempt at getting back onto her feet, this time succeeding at the endeavor. Now for getting out of the cabin.

Stumbling, she finds her way towards the door, a little scared of what she'd find when she'd opened it. Based on the sounds coming from the violent sea, and the loud raging of the tides, she knew it certainly wasn't going to be any good. (But fuck it, not like there's anywhere else she could go from there.)

Her breath hitching as she turns the nob, she walks outside just in time to see the pink octopus man _jump off the side of the boat._

She barely knows him(and she is nowhere near as awake as she needed to be for this), but damn it, she has no intentions of watching some kid who couldn't have been older than ten essentially commit suicide, and so she runs, screaming out another string of curse words as she does so. Heavy rain batters her face as she launches herself towards the kid, arms outstretched because she had to have been able to grab onto at least _one_ of his appendages. (For fuck's sake, the kid had six on his upper body alone!)

Ultimately, she fails, hindered by someone grabbing onto her _own_ limbs.

"Let me go! He's gonna die!" she protests, trying to squirm out of his grasp.

"Kid, _you're_ the one that's gonna die if you keep acting so recklessly," Rayleigh retorts. "Did you forget that Hatchi is a fishman, and can swim perfectly fine in rough waters? He's going ahead of us to tell Crocus to get ready to preform some of his medical magic."

She stops struggling to blush. "Oh."

He laughs in disbelief. "Go back inside the cabin, you'll be thrown off the boat if you stay out here."

She scrunches her nose up at the command, but nonetheless complies. She'd rather not end up going overboard on the ride up Reverse Mountain. As she steps back inside and shuts the door, another harsh lurch sends her flying, slamming her body against the opposite wall. She slides to the floor, her entire right side throbbing as she clutches onto the bedpost for dear life.

Despite the loudness of the storm, Rayleigh's disgruntled shouts make their way through the door, making her more alarmed than she even thought possible. She's stuck there though, unable to get up without being hurled back onto the floor by the boat's sporadic swaying.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and (for what seems like the millionth fucking time) prays to every divine being that's ever been known to exist. God, Kami, Shinigami—hell, she'd even pray to fucking Eros (because the god of love surely had to appreciate the fact that she really, _really_ loved living) if it meant surviving the hellish ordeal.

An eternity passes before the violent storm subsides. After waiting for half an hour to go by without anyone coming in to get her, she reluctantly crawls out of the room, blinking owlishly at the carnage when she finally reaches the outside world. The majority of the boat is in shambles, (She's absolutely positive that the boat had had a mast the last time she saw it) but the sea was calm—soothing. The boat—or rather, the boat's remains—sways gently, but she has no time to relish its relaxing effect.

On the outside, she seems unperturbed.

On the inside, she is screaming, because _how the fuck_ is she gonna get off the boat?

"Rayleigh-san?" she calls out, anxiety creeping up body.

Theories swirl around in her mind as she gets no response. Did he pass out from blood loss? Exhaustion? Had he been tossed into the waters on their way down Reverse Mountain? A panic attack looms over her, but before it can begin, a pink hand grabs onto the edge of the boat.

Hatchan hoists himself onto the boat, shaking his body to get rid of the excess water. (Inappropriately placed laughter threatens to bubble up as she compares his actions to that of a wet dog.) She stares at the boy she almost idiotically died for with amusement dancing in her eyes, no longer quite as terrified as she was a few moments before.

"Rayleigh-san went inside with Crocus-san, and took your nee-san too."

"I see." Her mouth is grimly set in a thin line before she gathers the courage to ask him. "Er, Hatchan-san, how do I get off of the boat?"

He gives her a look that makes her feel like _she's_ the anomaly between the two of them(which is indeed true, but _he_ didn't know it). "Can't you just jump off it?"

She falters. "No."

"Wow, humans really are weak. Do you want me to take you inside?" He sounds so naive that she brushes off the insult.

"Yes, please."

She isn't sure what she had expected—maybe for him to somehow lift the boat high enough for her to step off of it with ease—but she can't help but screech as he grabs her and throws her onto his back before taking a monster of a jump.

Four seconds. It takes four agonizing, _excruciating_ seconds for them to land on the cove, and she is screaming her lungs out for every bit of it.

He throws her off of him, giving her an annoyed look before reaching up to caress his ears. "What was that for?" He frowns.

She sputters, and before she can put together a comprehensible sentence about everything wrong with what he just did, a new person joins the fray.

"You the kid that cauterized Rayleigh's gunshot wound?" an older man asks, crossing his arms as he stepped out of the lighthouse.

She takes a brief moment to study him, taking in his appearance. He looks almost exactly the same as he did in the original storyline, the only real difference being the fact that his hair hadn't been completely whitened yet. There's something off about the way that he carries himself—like he's pissed at something—but she brushes it off as anger towards something Rayleigh did.

All it takes is a slight nod of affirmation for her to find out that she is wholly correct.

"You should've let the idiot bleed out." Crocus rolls his eyes. "You wouldn't believe how many times I had to patch the irresponsible moron up. I just came outside to help you off the boat before I started on his surgery, but I guess you figured it out yourself. Is there anything you need before I go?"

She ponders over it for a moment. "Is the sister okay?"

"The girl Rayleigh dragged in with him? She'll be fine. I just finished bandaging her up, and I gave her a little sedative so she could sleep." He makes a move to go back inside, but stops. "You two, come inside with me."

"No thanks. I'm gonna go on a swim," Hatchi declines, jumping off of the ledge and nearly giving Nao another heart attack.

She warily looks at the boat, knowing that there was no way for her to get back on it, and decides to take him up on his offer. "Okay."

She awkwardly walks towards him, limbs still shaking from both of the ludicrously terrifying experiences she had gone through. He waits for her to get to him, holding the lighthouse door open for her to walk inside. It's a modestly sized place—a little bare, but livable, though it didn't seem like he spent much time in there anyways. (Then again, if she were him, she'd think it'd be cooler to live in a whale's stomach too.)

"Where are they?"

He makes an upwards gesture. "Second floor."

Nao nods, making her way to the spiral staircase. Involuntarily, she gulps, eyeing how tall the steps seemed to be compared to her small stature. Noticing her hesitation, Crocus sighs and picks her up by the collar of her shirt, invoking a cry of outrage.

"I can get upstairs by myself!"

"Yeah, and both Rayleigh and your sister would've died of old age by the time you got up there."

She shuts up, scowling at the sharp-tongued man. "I'm not saying thank you."

"Never asked you to."

"Crocus, stop harassing the children," Rayleigh's voice reverberates throughout the second floor.

"Rayleigh, stop harassing _me_. I thought I got rid of you four years ago," Crocus retorts, opening the door to the aforementioned man's room and tossing Nao back down onto the ground.

She lands with a squeak, blushing as both men paused in their bickering to look at her.

"Aren't you a doctor? Shouldn't you be refraining from injuring kids?" Rayleigh chastises.

"Yes, I am a doctor, but you make me wish that I wasn't. Then I could accidentally let you bleed out." Crocus responds, not missing a beat.

Their arguing comes in a steady rhythm, making their long-running friendship all the more apparent. If her behind wasn't hurting so much from Crocus' manhandling, she might've cracked a smile at the reluctantly endearing bond they had. Instead, she keeps the stern frown on her face, continuing to radiate annoyance towards the doctor. If she had had the right instruments, _she_ probably could've fixed up Rayleigh on her own.

Probably.

"So, when are you gonna put me under and get this bullet out of me?" Rayleigh asks in a tone that's far too calm to belong to a man who just nearly sailed for an entire day with a gaping wound. (Nao is convinced that all pirates are secretly suicidal.)

"Right now. Hold this to your face and breath in." Crocus tosses a rag at the injured man while he issues the command.

"Really?" Rayleigh raises an eyebrow at the stained thing.

Crocus sighs. "Yes. This isn't a hospital. I don't have any way to properly administer the anesthetic."

Nao scrunches her nose up in disapproval as Rayleigh raised the drenched cloth to his face. Now she's _certain_ she could've provided a better medical service than this ragtag, impromptu surgery. At least _she_ wouldn't just chloroform the guy and call it a job well done.

"Hey kid, can you stay and hand me the tools while I work on this impulsive moron?"

She perks up at this, eager to sit in on her first surgery in a long while. "Sure." She scurries over to where he stood, taking a stance next his seated figure.

He motions towards the tray of tools that she prayed were sanitary before starting. "Can you hand me the bottle of alcohol?" he requests, not bothering to look her way as he put gloves on his hands.

She falters when she sees that the bottle of alcohol is literally vodka. (But really, what else had she expected?) Begrudgingly, she hands it over, and he nods in approval.

"Scalpel."

She recognizes the tone he uses—the steady drawl of a seasoned surgeon doing 'just another' one his usual procedures—and relaxes. She can, at the very least, trust the guy to not accidentally kill her savior. Impulsively, she grabs the tool and hands it over with no hesitation, and when Crocus sees the instrument enter his range of vision so soon, he raises his eyebrow.

"You've done this before?" His voice betrays his curiosity. Apparently he hadn't expected for her to be so well versed in identifying medical utensils.

"You could say that," she confirms, albeit rather cryptically.

"Hm," he hums in approval.

Two hours pass by in that fashion, the two of them working quietly with the silence only being broken by a periodic demand for a different implement. At last, he asks for the needle, and begins suturing the wound. Yawning, she backs up to stretch out her body. Her spine gives out a series of cracks—the noise resounding throughout the room—and she winces slightly at the sound. She's not used to standing still for such a long period of time anymore.

"If you plan on heading out with Rayleigh, tell Shakky to give him a good beating for me," Crocus comments tiredly, wiping blood off his hands as he exits the room.

When she's sure that he's gone, she grabs the scalpel again, mesmerized as she twirls it in her hand. She misses the feel of these tools—the way her hands once used them so naturally as she had assisted in surgeries. Once, in what seemed like an eternity ago, they had called her a prodigy—a true genius in the operating room. Now she was just a dead whore's daughter who happened to know quite a bit about medicine.

"Kids shouldn't play with sharp objects." Rayleigh's slurred speech startles Nao, causing her to drop the instrument to the floor with a loud clang. "Then again, you're not a kid, are you?"

Her heart stops.

"What do you mean, Rayleigh-san?"

* * *

 **Dun dun dun! Nao's finally getting confronted, and by Rayleigh nonetheless! Ar you guys enjoying the story so far? I'm so excited to write out their confrontation next chapter. I promise it will be longer than this one.**

 **Please review if you have the time! Reading your guys' feedback is honestly what keeps me going.**

 **Have a wonderful day!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Surprise! Did y'all think you could get rid of me** ** _that_** **easily?**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.**

* * *

"So, what is it?" Rayleigh asks vaguely.

Nai furrows her eyebrows together at his inquiry, pretending to be confused at what he's saying. She's certain she's been caught, but she'd let the man figure it out for himself, rather than admit guilt when there's still a small chance Rayleigh's guess could be totally off.

"Was it a devil fruit? Some weird science experiment from one of the islands around here? I'd have to be on more than just anesthetics for me to believe that you're _actually_ just a child." His voice is barely comprehensible, yet somehow his slurred speech is still just as intimidating as it would have been if he were sober.

Nao's mouth goes dry as she rushes to find an excuse—any excuse, really (because she'd be _damned_ if she was gonna get caught _there_ of all places. The main plot hadn't even _begun_ yet!) Despite her best efforts, though, she comes up with nothing. "I really _don't_ know what you're talking about, Rayleigh-san."

He scowls briefly, and for a moment she thinks she's about to meet her demise, but a gruff laugh startles her out of her fears of a premature death. "Ah, alright! Have it your way. Just don't come whining to me if you have pangs of guilt over holding this secret," he guffaws, a light hearted expression now replacing the angry one that he had adorned mere seconds before.

She resists the urge to say something _too_ rude out of exasperation—the people in this world were fuckin' _weirdos—_ but her snarky attitude gets the best of her _._ "Sorry, Rayleigh-san, but it's a _hard_ pass."

"Oh, you're getting cheeky with me now?" The intensity of his laugh increases, and Nao almost fears that the stitches she had oh-so delicately put into place would rip. Before her anxieties can manifest into reality, however, Nao is met with a slight bump on the head—courtesy of Rayleigh and his fist.

"Has the infamous Roger Pirates' first mate fallen so far as to take to bullying children?"

Crocus returns to the room so quietly that Nao cannot help but let out a dignified shriek. It's almost as if the world _wants_ to deliver her death via heart failure. Rayleigh, on the other hand, sits impassively on the makeshift hospital bed, completely unbothered by the undeclared entrance of his former crewmate. "Your steps are still as light as ever. Didn't Roger ever tell you to gain some weight?"

"Didn't he tell _you_ to not stray too far from Shakky-san?"

"Touché."

The two old friends pause in their bickering for a moment, and the air quickly becomes filled with almost half a decade's worth of laughs.

The sight is one for the books—no one outside of the crew itself knew that the Roger Pirates still had surviving crew—and yet all Nao could feel was complete and utter relief. Rayleigh's intruding questions had taken a momentary break as he made up for lost time with his old comrade, and Nao couldn't have been more grateful for the _ridiculous_ amount of coincidental encounters that happened in this world.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it, Rayleigh?"

Rayleigh, though the only answer is obvious, doesn't reply immediately. He takes his time to really think—as if he's reliving all those years that had passed after Roger's death. in the end, he can only muster two words in response. "It has."

Crocus laughs heartily. "And yet you're still dragging your busted ass into my infirmary. Shouldn't you have picked up on at least a _few_ tricks of mine to keep yourself alive by now?" he teased, yet his tone could only be described as a fond one.

"What can I say? Some things never change."

Their nostalgic exchange is so intimate that Nao almost feels embarrassed—like she's some sort of unwanted eavesdropper—to hear it.

Instead, she tunes them out, taking it as a rare opportunity to explore her own thoughts on the shitshow she had gotten herself into this time. In spite of how close she had gotten to dying a _second_ time around, she allows herself to wonder about what it must have been like to have lived in such an iconic era, rather than have just read about it. There are so many mysteries—so many _little things_ that she had the opportunity to gain insight on, yet she had spent so many years holed up in a whore house.

Of course, she understands how absurd it is to be upset over missing out on a thing or two—she was like, _three_ after all—but she couldn't help but feel a new sense of wonder within herself. Her situation was strange, yes, and the world was downright fucking terrifying, but she still held an unquellable urge to _see_ the world for herself.

Impending consequences most likely involving death aside—she'd be damned if she didn't grab hold of this golden opportunity right in front of her.

"Rayleigh-san, may I travel with you once you've recovered?" she spits it out without even a _hint_ of hesitation. (She had already died _once,_ who the fuck says she won't just be reborn again if she ends up getting decimated a second time? Might as well make light of the situation while she still can.)

Rayleigh and Corcus fall into a damning silence before breaking into a chorus of cackles.

"Kid, do you know who you're asking? Or what you're even asking for?" Rayleigh's laugh doesn't falter.

Nao gives both of them a hard stare, showing no hint of amusement in her expression. (Inside, though, she's shitting _bricks_ , 'cause these men could easily kill her a million times over, and without any strain at that.)

"You'd probably be better off staying here with me and your sister. Marines pass by here every once in awhile and could get you back over the grand line and into Mama-san's care again." Crocus offers, trying to dissuade the headstrong girl.

"Back to my predestined fate of being a _whore_?" she responds, eyebrows raised to their highest possible point to emphasize how ridiculous the suggestion is.

Truth be told, she doesn't really know what she's doing by begging for a place in Rayleigh's ramshambled life. Her plan was still very much intact, after all, but her will to obtain some sort of satisfaction through ruining the timeline(and, through that, giving some sort of symbolic middle finger to the fates that have consistently screwed her over) was somewhat overtaken by her want to explore. After all, how many people can claim to have travelled with _the_ Dark King.

"Hold on now, Crocus-san—as much as I hate to admit it—is right. Do you know what you're asking for?" Rayleigh inquires, now taking her request seriously.

"Of course," she responds, her resolve unwavering from their perspective. (Oh shit ohsihit oh shit o _h_ _ **shit**_.)

Rayleigh's stoic face breaks into a contagious grin. "Well then, why not?"

"Rayleigh! Do _you_ understand what you're agreeing to? Roger was always the one making stupid decisions, and we were the ones who cleaned up after him. We've aged, Rayleigh, and now's not the time to switch roles. I thought we were on the same page here," Crocus sputters, not believing what he was hearing from the former first mate of his old crew.

"And between him and us, who was happy in the end?" Rayleigh counters. (Holy _crap_ that was a low blow.)

Crocus opens his mouth to speak again, then closes it, suddenly acutely aware of of what Rayleigh meant from his uncharacteristically illogical decision.

"Do whatever you like," he grumbles, relenting.

Nao can barely comprehend the events that had just transpired.

(Holy _shit._ )

* * *

 **It's been _quite_ awhile guys, and to be honest, I considered deleting this story a few times, but in the end I just couldn't give up on it. **

**I'm so sorry for the wait. This past year has not been easy on me, but that's no excuse for be prolonged absence on this site. This update is short, and I'm sorry, but it's simply a chapter to help me get back into the groove.**

 **I hope you enjoyed!**

 **Please review. Reading your thoughts, no matter how short, is what inspires me to ride. It truly keeps me going.**

 **See y'all soon. :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

"Nao-chan, how old are you?" Rayleigh's eyebrow raises everso slightly.

"Three," she chimes in response.

Her faux enthusiasm is betrayed by her refusal to make eye contact with the man. The brief bout of confidence is long gone, and in its place is pure terror at how her impulsive request had turned out.

The two of them sit inside the ship—in the very same room Nao had woken up in only a few days before. There's a certain irony in how her current terror mirrors the fear she felt as she woke up the first time around (and if she wasn't about to _shit_ herself, she'd have commented once more on Fate's unrelenting sense of humor. This world sure was a sucker for parallels.)

"You know, you could always go back to the—"

"I want to go to sea," Nao manages to spit out despite every bone in her body telling her to take this god-given opportunity to escape.

She isn't lying, per se, she simply is obscuring the full truth. She did, absolutely, want to go to sea, but not because of an innate need to travel the world, or a newly developed ambition to become something like the Pirate King. Her unwavering resolve to accompany Rayleigh on his voyages comes from something much less pure than the wills that had pushed people like Roger to venture out; it comes from her want—no, _need_ to shake the world for the life it had given her.

And Rayleigh can sense every bit of genuineness in her proclamation.

"That's the spirit," he laughs. "Now, if we want to make it out to sea, Crocus better hurry and cut the rope. Your sister is going to be quite surprised if she wakes to find you gone."

As if on cue, the boat shakes to signify that they had been cut loose, and at the same time, a shrill voice calls from the lighthouse. " _Nao-chan_!"

Nao winces at the familiar voice. "Rayleigh-san, we should hurry."

"The boat has already started moving since the rope was cut," he reassures her. "Are you sure you don't want to say goodbye to your nee-san? The ocean isn't always so kind as to let everyone return home."

Nao has always been aware that eventually her time at the brothel would come to end, and she has always assumed that she would not falter in her resolve when that day came.

Yet somehow, for reasons unbeknownst to her, tears threaten to fall from her eyes. (Why was she crying cry _ingcrYing C_ _ **ryIng?**_ )

Nao rushes past Rayleigh, moving so quickly that she never gets to see the knowing smile that had settled onto his face. Her legs seem to have a mind of their own as she runs to the edge of the ship, leaning over the railing to look back at the lighthouse. " _Nee-san_!"

The woman Nao had called out to widens her eyes.

"Nee-san! I'm sorry, but I can't come back! I have to go and see what this world can offer! There's people in this world I wanna meet! I'm sorry! I swear I'll get those marines back for destroying Mama-san's home!" Nao wails between teary hiccups.

If she were to be honest, she doesn't quite get it herself, either. There's no doubt that she was grateful for the brothel's kindness in raising her, but nothing that had happened in those commonplace years should have been enough to draw out such raw emotion from a girl who'd only ever viewed the surrounding people as _characters._

Yet, somehow, as the boat draws further away from the now-crying sister, Nao cannot help but remember the time that very same sister had oh-so carefully braided her hair. That time the girls had fawned over her first customized kimono. That time Mama-san had screamed at her so passionately and lovingly for wandering out of the whore house. That time her sister ( _brothers?)_ had shed tears over her. ( _That time she was accidentally injured by her doting b_ _ **rothe**_ _rs while her moth_ _ **erMotherFatherPaRents**_ _were away. Hadn't she cried this hard back then, too?_ Wait, what?)

Before she can pay too much attention to the overlap in memory, the sister responds.

"Don't you dare die before you make this world your bitch, Nao! We always knew you'd leave us one day! You're always one step ahead of us, even when you were just an infant! You're too smart to grow up to be like one of us, so it's okay to leave." The sister— _Aiko-san—_ pauses, as if she were debating whether or not to continue. "But even so, people like us— _whores_ —we're selfish! We hate saying goodbye, so please come back one day! You can always come home to us! We'll wait for as long as we have to, because you're our little sister!"

Nao turns away, having no response that could be worthy of giving to the kind sister. ( _How could she put up a loving farce when she barely saw her caretakers as real people?)_

"You can always reply once you return. It's true what I said, the sea can be cruel, but it can also be kind. It's too vast to ever stay stagnant," Rayleigh reassures her, his large hand falling upon her shaking shoulders.

Nao nods, going along with his misinterpretation of her trembling figure.

"Where to now?" Nao breathes shakily, resolving to momentarily push her concerns over her lack of real remorse to the back burner.

Before Rayleigh can answer, a booming crash draws the attention of both Rayleigh and Nao. Without a word to him, Nao moves toward the deck, curious at what oddity had entered her immediate life now. (As committed as Nao was to screw the world over, the world was as equally committed to screw Nao over.)

"Rayleigh! _Rayleigh!_ We're in big trouble!" Hachi shakes off the water he had carried up with him from his landing. "I was swimming along with the ship, and there's real bad damage to it! We're gonna end up sinking!"

Nao pales at the new threat to their lives, whereas Rayleigh guffaws. "What are you all worried for, Hachi? You're a fishman, you can swim."

"Yeah, but you guys can't survive without a boat!" Hachi warns.

"I don't mean to be insolent, but didn't Hachi _just_ save you from drowning? Aren't we a bit—I don't know— _fucked?_ " Nao's voice threatens to reach a hysterical level (because this world just _can't fuckin give her a goddamn break)_ while Rayleigh's laugh continues to echo in the almost-vacant sea surrounding them.

 _Almost_.

"As I was saying, Nao—and Hachi too, now that you're here—we're going right there." Rayleigh points his finger off into the distance, singling out a ship not even a mile off.

A marine ship.

Nao chokes. " _What?_ "

Rayleigh ignores her. "Hachi, help me change the course of the ship, will you? Our boat's small enough to go undetected. Once we're a bit closer, would you mind going off and hiding Nao for a bit?" he requests, the confident smile not at all weakening.

Nao, on the other hand, barely suppresses the urge to puke. "I've boarded a ship with a damn maniac," she mutters under her breath, though deep down inside she's certain that Rayleigh has some sort of plan.

"If you want to keep up your charade, it'd be wise to not appear vulgar. Children don't tend to curse often, or as fluently as you do, Nao," the maniac in question comments helpfully, causing Nao to stumble over from shock. (So he _hadn't_ forgotten the conversation they had had while he was still under an anesthetic.)

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Even to her own ears, Nao's denial sounds weak.

"Don't worry, I won't pry."

The conversation goes no further as both Hachi and Rayleigh jump into action, the boat having made it uncomfortably close to the ship. In the blink of an eye, Rayleigh tears the sails, leaving the ship to the mercy of mother nature.

Before she can even begin to understand what he was doing, Hachi grabs ahold of Nao without warning and dives over the railing of the ship. A purple hand covers her mouth as Nao instinctively moves to scream, and only when they resurface above the water does she understand either man's rash actions.

"Help! Help!" Rayleigh yells, the horror in his voice sounding unnervingly realistic.

Realization dawns upon Nao as she observes the marines' piqued attention towards the ship. Someone—a mid ranked official, probably—calls for all of them to aid the seemingly stranded ship. One by one, the marines move to head onto it, following Rayleigh's voice under the deck.

"The ship! It's gonna sink!" Rayleigh raises his voice to exemplify the panic that he's pretending to be feeling.

Hearing this, the marines rush their movements, connecting ropes to the ship as quickly as possible in a noble attempt at rescuing the seemingly helpless man. Nao almost feels sorry for how futile their valiant actions were going to turn out to be. It is, she'll admit, refreshing though—to see marines doing heroic things rather than the corrupt actions of the ones usually depicted in the manga.

"Nao, stay focused if you don't wanna go to sleep," Hachi advises.

For another second, she is confused at the strange order, but the confusion is swiftly overtaken by a dreading sense of pure fright as something washes over what feels like the entire sea. Her eyelids struggle to remain open as she's exposed to her first ever experience with Conqueror's Haki. (For the first time in her life, she's thanking every god out there for aligning her with Rayleigh instead of against him.)

"Okay, Hachi, I'm done! Let's get the rest of the marines on the main boat off of it." Rayleigh displays not even the slightest sign of fatigue.

This time Nao braces herself for the stomach-wrenching jump that Hachi apparently was so fond of. Regardless, she still feels as if she is about to collapse, though she's unsure if it's due to the sudden movement or the overwhelming Conqueror's Haki that she'd just been subjected to.

"Sorry about that, Nao. I'm a little rusty with my control, and a little of that probably hit you," Rayleigh apologizes sincerely, though Nao cannot get over his choice of wording to acknowledge it.

"A _little_?" Externally, Nao only seems slightly shaken. Internally, Nao is a screaming wreck.

"Anyways," he says this in a sing-song voice, clearly amused at Nao's reactions to all that he's done. "I'm glad we didn't have to hunt too far for a marine ship. How convenient!"

Nao would've surely doubted his sanity by now if she hadn't been privy to the wiseness in his character that would come decades from this current moment. "Can you tell me again why you just _had_ to target the navy for another ship instead of repairing our own?" Nao asks exasperatedly. She's already over the grandeur of his reputation.

"For someone so informed as you, I'd have thought you would've figured it out by now," he teases as he effortlessly drags three marines off of their former ship and onto the dingy boat that had miraculously made it over reverse mountain.

Nao looks at him without a trace of amusement in her expression.

"Fine, fine. Don't look so glum marines have truly amazing technology, Nao. How else would we make it over the calm belt?"

"The calm belt? But why?" Nao's brows furrow in confusion. What the hell did they struggle over reverse mountain for then?

"Why? To go to Ohara, of course."

 _What?_

"What?"

* * *

 **Another update so y'all know I'm back to stay! Haha. I hope you guys enjoyed! Stuff's moving pretty fast right now but things with smooth over soon. I really do mean it when I say I'm back to stay and will update regularly!**

 **Please review! I was so overjoyed reading your reviews last time.**

 **What do you guys think they'll do in Ohara? (:**

 **Have a great night!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

 **Edit: I've corrected some rather confusing typos I had made. Sorry about that!**

* * *

Before even an inkling of her protest is heard, Rayleigh and Hachi have already moved to their respective positions—moving with a synchronicity that Nao can only stare in awe at. How could she ever hope to achieve that level of mastery of the seas?

"A ship takes more than two people to sail, Nao."

Nao gives an acknowledging nod at Rayleigh's teasing complaint, now jumping into action to destroy all technology on the ship. The trio might have been a powerhouse due to Rayleigh's presence, but even he couldn't afford a naval fleet chasing at his heels when he had barely recovered from his injury. It was a drastic countermeasure, but a necessary one.

She flinches back, hissing in pain as the pointed end of a copper wire scratches the tip of her finger.

"Here," Rayleigh's booming voice calls her attention once more, and this time it's accompanied by a dangerous game of catch.

Nao barely grabs hold of the knife that is carelessly tossed her way, and once she's determined that she's safely kept all of her limbs, she shoots the Dark King a nasty glare.

"Are you trying to kill me?" she asks in exasperation, though she's well aware of the fact that if that were _really_ his goal, she'd already be dead. (Like, really, _really_ dead. Like deader than dead. Like roadkill on a professional racetrack level dead. Like twice-over dead, both literally and figuratively speaking.)

"I normally wouldn't throw a weapon at a kid, but you're not exactly, y'know…" he trails off, but the sly grin confirms to Nao everything she already knows.

There isn't even the slightest chance of her being wrong—Rayleigh was undoubtedly privy to her most dire secret.

"So, why are we going to Ohara? Did you already plan to go there before we met?" she asks in a feeble attempt at changing the course of their conversation. She did have _some_ plans in mind, yes, but nothing she could have foreseen would have prepared her for deceiving the former Pirate King's right hand. That was, at best, a suicidal endeavor.

He chooses to go along with her intentional change in subject. "In a way, yes. It's a bit of a frivolous journey, but I'm curious as to why I've experienced a weird sense of deja vu."

"Deja vu?" she inquires, brows furrowed to indicate that she was now genuinely invested in where their talk seemed to be headed.

"Are you asking me about what it is, or what I mean by saying it?" He wants to make her beg for the information.

"The latter," she clarifies, teeth gritted.

"It's hard to say, really. I'm going solely on a gut instinct here, but I feel as if I've already heard the news of Ohara before—long before it actually occurred—but the tragedy transpired differently than the papers are reporting. Perhaps I've gone senile, but it's piqued my interest, and since you seem to have no destination set in mind, I figured that could be the first place to travel to. You don't have any objections to it, do you?" His question seems innocuous, but the keen glint in his eyes indicated otherwise.

Nao chooses not to speak against his decision. "No objections at all," she spits through a forcibly bright beam. "I'm excited to travel!"

"Why are you guys acting all weird over here?" Hachi's blunt question comes as a surprise to both of them. He had appeared behind them with little warning, and had somehow managed to catch them both off guard.

Rayleigh was either way too invested in Nao's responses, or had lost his touch. (She'd be fucked if she were right, but Nao would have to bet on the former—there was definitely something unnerving about how he seemed to scrutinize every word that slipped out of her mouth.)

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Nao stutters, hastily moving away from the two of them to continue to disassemble anything that didn't look _completely_ shattered courtesy of Hachi.

The frequency of those objects is few and far between.

Rayleigh's stare is odd—almost cold—as he observes her sporadic movements. He settles for a short sigh in response to her panicked actions. "I won't be forcing you to spill your secrets, Nao, but trust is generally need between people who sail together."

Nao freezes, and Rayleigh understands that this means he will get no response. He leaves the room, taking Hachi with him by beckoning his hands, and allows Nao to really _think_ about the words he had just spoken.

And think, she does.

She is well aware of how right he is. Trust is essential among people who wished to have a smooth journey together, but she'd have to be out of her mind to reveal something as fictitious sounding as the fact that she was living, breathing proof of Fate being one fucked up individual. She could never expose such a thing—that she is sure of—yet she feels pressured to. Is this what it means to be truly intimidated?

For the few years that she had lived with her 'sisters', she had never once experienced true fear—not including the horror that had consumed her upon being reborn. Yet somehow now, in the presence of Rayleigh, every bit of her that desired to live screamed at her to run far, far away.

But she wouldn't— _couldn't_. Her plans had already been set into motion.

Rayleigh's rash decision to travel to what remains of Ohara is proof enough that her role in this world could not be minimal. If he remembered the even playing out in a different way, there was no telling how many others had gotten that same 'inkling' that he had gotten. She is, however, certain that she's the only one with a complete memory of all that would occur in this strange world.

Running away would be a waste of Fate's rare kindness—something she has no intentions to do.

Despite this resolve, though, Nao still decides that it'd be wise to stay away from Rayleigh as often as possible. From what little he had seen of her, he had already been able to deduce that she was obscuring information, and had even insinuated that she had been responsible for the strange overlap in his memory. He's not a bad man, but a man who could be bad for her. Her situation was precarious enough as is.

And so, after a full day of avoiding Rayleigh as best as she could while stuck on a ship with him, Nao wakes to find herself curled into a ball, tucked away in some little corner of the operating room. She doesn't remember feeling tired—doesn't even remember falling asleep—yet she had slept for a curiously long amount of time. There's something blatantly wrong with how things had proceeded, but there's little time that she can spend dwelling on it.

Rayleigh clears his throat from the entrance of the room, not even drawing out the slightest hint of alarm from her. Her lack of an appropriate response from his sudden appearance is telling of how alert she is around him. She'd have to be a damn fool _not_ to be, though. (It's a guy nicknamed the fucking _Dark King_. Who _wouldn't_ be wary of someone with a sketchy name like that?)

"We've landed in Ohara." It's a simple statement, but what it implies for Nao is earth-shattering.

In the original storyline, Ohara had been completely wiped from the map. Everything had been destroyed—from the island's citizens to the land map itself. Rayleigh's words, however, say otherwise.

"But I thought it was—" she stops herself mid-sentence, but it's far too late. She'd made an unfixable blunder.

Rayleigh cocks an eyebrow, looking at her with eyes that urged her to open her mouth. "Was what?" he inquires, yet he gives her no time to actually give a response. "Completely decimated? I thought so too. So tell me, Nao, why exactly are you aware of the very same things that _I'm_ aware of, though those things had never happened?"

"I'm—" She's certain she's about to do it—certain that she's about to disregard end her short-lived attempt at living in secrecy, but the Fate itself seems to intervene.

A loud boom is heard from a no more than a couple hundred meters away, followed by the violent rocking of the ship they had boarded. Nao stumbles forward, scraping her hands on the wooden planks while Rayleigh does not bat an eyelash. She represses a shiver at how unbothered he is—he was too accustomed to the unforgiving nature of the seas.

"Stay here." It's not a suggestion; it's a demand.

Without protest, she complies. Her circumstances may be insane, but she's still perfectly lucid—save for a few psychotic breaks every once in awhile. She squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her back against the corner that she had awoken in. It's not the most efficient way of bracing for an attack, but it's what she can manage in the brief moments she assumes she has to prepare.

She (as she'll often turn out to be, because the Universe preferred making a damn fool out of her over anything else) is wrong.

There is no sound of combat—not even from the supposed enemy's end of the conflict. In fact, the noises that do reach her ear sound like the opposite of what she had immediately assumed. Rayleigh's voice contorts itself into a gleeful shout—one so joyous sounding that Nao ponders if the man had lost his mind.

She waits for a few more minutes, giving herself time to gather enough courage to wander outside. Eventually, she quells the fear inside of her and delicately picks herself off of the floor. The tenseness in her shoulders does not disappear, but she throws away her usual wary approach towards sketchy predicaments.

This divergence from her standard strategy, she decides, is a mistake.

While Rayleigh's concerns had been quelled the moment he stepped outside to identify the potential threat, the terror already instilled in Nao quadruples as she does the same. There's another person on board, but it's not the purple-tone fishman that stands in front of her. The face her eyes settle on shoots a chill down her spine, and she's almost desperate enough to escape that she considered jumping overboard.

It's the Revolutionaries.

And the tattoo that she had once so greatly admired through a television screen now stares her down.

He doesn't notice her quite yet, but simply catching sight of the man sends Nao reeling. She isn't all too sure what her appearance in his life could mean for the universe, but if them meeting somehow rippled through history to stop—or even _delay—_ Luffy's birth, 'screwed' would be an _understatement_ of how absolutely _hell-bound_ the world would be.

She tries to stealthily slip back into the room she had been occupying, but it's too late.

"You've taken to adopting brats, Rayleigh?" Dragon jokes, looking pointedly at the scrawny figure a few yards behind the aforementioned man.

Rayleigh turns to take a look at Nao with an unusual expression on his face. The attention he pays to every movement makes it seem as if he's seeing her for the first time—truly observing every minuscule detail about her to qualify whatever conclusion his mind had reached.

"I don't think _brat_ is quite the right word here, Dragon," Rayleigh speaks in a lighthearted tone, but Nao knows exactly what he's implying.

She's never wanted to sink into the floor so desperately before, and with the attention all focused on her, she thinks she just might. (If a rubber man could exist, she could definitely momentarily transcend the laws of physics.) Unfortunately, instead of allowing her to leave so they could resume their talk, Rayleigh beckons for her to come closer to the two terrifyingly powerful men.

She's practically quaking in her muddied geta sandals. For the first time in the entirety of her two lives, she thinks she'd rather be in a brothel as opposed to the fever dream of a reality that she'd gotten stuck in.

Dragon considers Rayleigh's words carefully, bending over ever so slightly to get a better look at Nao. His face, shockingly, lights up in recognition. "Ah! You're the child my dad keeps referring to as the 'creepy rascal' that Mama-san picked up."

"Dad?" Rayleigh echos, looking taken aback.

Nao hides an amused snort. She can't judge Rayleigh's for his astonishment at the fact that Dragon had a father, though. Sure, it was _biologically_ obvious, but it was too ridiculous to think that such a daunting man could have something so ordinary as a _father_ , much less someone like Garp. Despite how disastrously her encounter with Dragon could go, it _was_ rather humorous that a legend of a man could be related to none other the Navy's own legend of an officer.

The Monkey D. lineage was clearly not one to scoff at.

"You know, vice admiral Garp. If I'm not mistaken, he had a few run ins with that captain of yours, Rayleigh," Dragon confirms the identity of his father, casually mentioning three of the most insanely formidable men in known history.

Rayleigh's eyes practically jump out of his face. "You're that man's son?! And the Navy hasn't removed him from his post?" He is absolutely bewildered at the revelation.

"Oh," Dragon pauses. "Maybe that information was classified."

Now, both Nao and Rayleigh wear mirroring looks of incredulity at the man's carelessness. (Nao finally understands how all three men—Garp, Luffy, and Dragon—are related.)

There is an awkward silence as the two settle on ignoring the man's fickleness.

"Why are you and your men here, Dragon?" Rayleigh asks the question that had been on Nao's mind since she had sighted the man.

She remembers that the Revolutionary Army had searched for Robin for years after the tragic fate of the Ohara scholars, but if she could correctly recall, their hunt hadn't started until long after the incident had passed. Why on earth were they informed of it _now_?

Dragon looks at Rayleigh in bewilderment. "Don't you know? I thought you brought that girl here solely because of her knowledge of the Ohara incident."

Nao stills, retreating further into herself with every word that spilled out of Dragon's mouth.

"What do you mean?" Rayleigh's question is more of a demand for information than anything.

Dragon doesn't disappoint.

"The Navy caught wind of there being an island of people who could translate those stone oddities around the world—the poneglyphs. A loosely connected associate of mine, Nico Olvia, and her team had been travelling to investigate further into the poneglyphs, but last I heard of them, they had been captured and killed by the marines."

"What does that have to do with Nao?"

"Nao, was it?" Now Dragon bares the same curious face that Rayleigh had had on mere moments before. "You've heard of how she's why every marine in the North Blue flooded to Mama-san's, correct?"

Realization dawns on Rayleigh, but he motions for Dragon to continue. "Yes, go on."

"A witness at a local dango shop had overheard a conversation about Ohara between a marine and a child. They'd blamed it on the child, Nao over here, and had stated that she had been the one to bring up the incident before it occurred. The marines have never been all that great and keeping things confidential, and my men were able to intercept a conversation between Headquarters and a fleet of ships. There's not all that much to it after that. We weren't able to get here in time to stop the initial conflict, but we were able to prevent _everything_ from being destroyed. One of the survivors had already escaped, but the other is with us as of now." Dragon's voice drops to a monotonous tone—one probably used for debriefing his fellow revolutionaries—as he describes the spiral events that had occurred since Nao's slip of the tongue.

"One of?" Nao's voice is urgent as she questions Dragon's choice of wording, interjecting before even Rayleigh could speak.

Dragon regards her with intrigue. "Yes, one of. Nico Robin has somehow slipped through the hands of the marines, which is unfortunate but Jaguar D. Saul, once he's been thawed by my men, is expected to survive, though. It seems that Kuzan's sense of comradery prevented him from landing a killing blow that would've been absolute." Dragon says the last bit with a hint of bitterness.

Nao (if you forget that she was so preoccupied with losing her shit) completely understands why such an action is looked down upon. The marines had no qualms with the slaughter of thousands, but still couldn't deliver the finishing blow to someone who had committed treason? As convenient as Saul's survival is, there is something innately wrong about it.

Nao has no time to fret about the morals of the Navy, though. If a few words blurted out on a whim could do so much to alter the course of history, what on earth would her meeting people like Dragon and Rayleigh do?

"I'm going back inside," she states abruptly, having no desire to stick around.

Neither of the men make an effort, but out of the corner of her eye, she catches Dragon whispering something that—judging by the stare that was locked onto her retreating figure—concerned her.

She suppresses the urge to puke as she finally escapes the suffocating atmosphere.

Without even knowing, her very existence was already rewriting history.

* * *

 **I got the update done in under a week! Woohoo. I hope you guys enjoyed the surprise guest in this chapter. Things are already changing so much!**

 **I noticed kind of a lack of response from you guys, is anything wrong? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story so far, good or bad. :)**

 **Please review if you have the chance!**

 **Have a great day!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey y'all! I made a bit of a blunder last time and had implied that Rayleigh has a completed memory of the canon One Piece world. He absolutely doesn't, and I've fixed that typo. ~ Enjoy the chapter!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.**

* * *

Changing the course of history through a series of well-orchestrated, meticulously designed events had always been the plan.

Changing it through an unfortunate saga of horrible mistakes? Not so much.

At the current moment, Nao sits anxiously pressed against a corner near the door she had walked through only moments before. Her breathing is ragged, her entire body hurts, and her mind is whirling with various outcomes she could cause due to her meddling. She's nearly quivering with fear—the two men merely a few yards away from her were truly beings to be feared.

A manic grin spreads across her face.

This is glorious.

The panic that had rendered her nauseous a few moments before had evaporated as soon as she had escaped the immediate vicinity. It had sprung from the overwhelming pressures of the men's presences, not her fear of being too intrusive with how things were going to turn out. Sure, she's certain that some of her plans would have to be scrapped after the survival of Saul, but, for the most part, she could proceed as planned.

With Rayleigh as her traveling companion, she'd become strong, and, with that strength, she could manipulate the future as she so pleases to do.

She chides herself now, disbelieving how perturbed she had gotten after leaving the whore house. For three years she had painstakingly prepared for the possible kinks in her plans, and yet somehow a little marine invasion and a surprise early start to her scheme had sent her reeling away in tears. She had been foolish to care for the sisters—even if it was only a love born for their role as a substitute for her original family. She couldn't allow herself to waver now.

What she needed to do was manipulate the unnervingly sharp man that she had attached herself to.

She knows she can't get away with on-the-spot lies for long—he was much too intelligent for that; she'd have to think of a more intricate cover story. She takes a second to thank the gods for giving her a breather from the roller coaster of a shitshow that her life has been since the marines invaded her hometown—this was not a chance she could waste.

Inching her head towards the entrance, she carefully attempts to peak. The two men stand closer now, allowing only snippets of their conversation to be loud enough for Nao to overhear.

"... marine took responsibility… no bounty… seems safe."

"... who… not Garp?"

"... former Celestial Dragon… poor family… Donquixote."

Nao barely halts the gasp that accidentally tumbles out of her mouth. The world sure is unpredictable, that she knows well. What she didn't expect, however, was for the clumsy ditz of a marine—one she had cruelly dragged into her mess of a life—to accept the blame for a blunder on her part. Though the refreshingly kind marine is the one who'd have to consequently pay the price for a blunder on her part, she can't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

There was no price for her head—she could still make her moves in silence.

And so, now more than ever, obtaining information on how changed the world has become is essential to her survival.

She stays like that for an hour, legs cramped and trying so hard to comprehend their hushed words that she's positive her head will burst from how much she's straining herself.

"If you stay like that, you're gonna blow a blood vessel, and, unlike you, I have no medical knowledge to fix that, Nao," Rayleigh's voice carries to her position near the doorway, somehow sounding both threatening and benign at the same time. "You're free to join us. We never told you you had to leave."

The noise that she releases can be describe as nothing short of a squawk—an amusing sound that causes both the monstrously powerful men to chuckle.

"What a nosy brat," Dragon says, though his words hold no malicious undertone. He is—though Nao can hardly comprehend it, simply because of how odd it is—teasing her. "But such a thing is what keeps you alive in this kind of world."

This, she suspects, is what probably earned him the leader position of the Revolutionaries. He was surprisingly approachable, despite how frightening his description was to those who only knew of him. The way he spoke did little to help his reputation, though. His voice was gruff and demanding—the epitome of strong—yet the words he spoke hinted towards a begrudgingly shown kindness.

But Nao doesn't particularly care about the lilt to his voice, or any of that bullcrap—she's just glad at least one of the two men seemed to not have startling her to death as one of their personal goals.

She chews the inside of her cheek, abashedly looking away from Rayleigh's gaze as she rejoins their company. As much of a spitfire as she is, even Nao has a sense of shame when she's been caught red-handed. She juts her lip out, giving a half-assed lie to defend herself—if only to keep up her childlike image in the eyes of the two men. "I wasn't trying to be nosy."

Rayleigh laughs wholeheartedly, sending shivers down Nao's spine as he clamps his hand on her shoulder. It's the same falsified show of amusement a mother gives in public when she's conspiring to beat her child to hell and back once they're alone.

Nao swallows nervously. "I mean—sorry," she squeaks.

She might've reaffirmed her resolve to meddle with events, but that didn't change the fact that Rayleigh rightfully intimidated the shit out of her.

Dragon eyes their interaction curiously, opening his mouth to make a comment on something he'd observed. At the same time, however, an oddly dull shout is heard from below the ship, drawing the attention of all three of the people on it.

"Dragon-sama," the voice booms, yet there is no urgency in its tone.

The two men simply have to turn, while Nao runs to the edge of the ship, getting on her tippy toes to catch a glimpse of the source of the voice. What she sees, though, is so shocking that it nearly sends her overboard. Rayleigh snorts incredulously, getting behind her at record speed to grab hold of her before she could tumble off their ship.

"Now isn't the best time to go for a swim," he remarks sarcastically.

She ignores the quip—too preoccupied with gaping at the monstrous man that stood on a makeshift raft below their boat.

Bartholomew Kuma, the soonish-to-be government's personal science experiment.

"Kuma," Dragon addresses back, nodding to confirm that the man can continue speaking.

How many more ridiculously overpowered men is she gonna run into over a course of a few days?

"Vice Admiral Saul has been partially thawed, but appears to be gravely injured by Kuzan's freezing technique. He seems unresponsive, and we have no medical staff on site at the moment. How should we proceed?"

Nao's heartbeat quickens at the mention of the man's injuries. She knows exactly what it is that needs to be done to ensure his survival, but her toddler-like appearance made it impossible to convey the instructions. Rayleigh, she realizes, comes to the same conclusion as she does, and nudges her ever so slightly—a movement so small not even Dragon takes notice.

"Nao here can fix that." Rayleigh volunteers Nao before she can pipe up herself.

A blush spreads across her cheeks, and she looks away timidly, avoiding the inquisitive gazes of Dragon and Kuma. "I can't make any promises," she says, and she's not exactly lying. She may have knowledge of how to aid victims of frostbite, but she still has no idea how severe Saul's condition is.

"A medicinal prodigy?" Dragon asks.

"Hmm…" Rayleigh hums thoughtfully, pretending to think about what Nao really is. "Something of the sort."

Nao's ears warm even more, and she's sure her face is flushed a fiery red, but she clears her throat and attempts to regain a professional air. ( _she is **was** WaS a do **ctor dOctOr DOCTOR** after all_ ) "If someone can help me get to wherever Saul is, I can probably help him survive."

She knows damn well the way she's speaking is eons beyond what a three year old should be capable of, but there's no time to waste putting on a front of ignorance when she has to be the opposite of that to be allowed access to the injured giant.

Dragon and Kuma exchange looks, engaging in a comrade-powered telepathy to debate how qualified a three year old could possibly be in medical knowledge. Eventually, they seem to come to a mutual conclusion, nodding as Dragon gestures towards Nao. "Kuma, can you take her to the site?"

He nods, and Nao expects herself to be gently brought off the boat.

It doesn't exactly go that way.

Instead, Kuma appears behind her, placing a pawed hand on her back. Before she can even fully comprehend what he intends to do, she is ripped through the air and not even given the chance to scream prior to their instantaneous landing. Kuma looks unbothered by their terrifyingly speedy trip, while Nao's eyes are practically rolling to the back of her head. She shakes it off, though, determined to apply her knowledge to the best of her ability.

Preventing Saul's assured death may have been an accident, but letting it go to waste now would be a damn shame.

But her commitment as a medical professional sure as hell doesn't change how disgruntled she is at the heart-stopping trip. As Kuma begins to move the raft, she glares at both the oversized teddy bear and his leader with pure spite, but her vicious look only earns an amused chortle from both Rayleigh and Dragon.

Within ten minutes, Nao finds herself at a completely different part of the island with the boat far out of site. It doesn't take long for her to spot the frozen giant—it's a huge fuckin' ice cube floating in the sea—but she internally rejoices at what she sees.

From a superficial standpoint, he seems, for the most part, uninjured if the obvious start of frostbite is ignored. The a dozen or so men around him are half-assedly throwing buckets of seawater on him, waiting for Kuma's return. She suspects that had expected Dragon to return with the monotonous man, as confusion clouds their faces for a fraction of a second. Their bulging eyes when the do finally acknowledge Nao's appearance is, Nao decides, her new favorite thing to see.

She suppresses a giggle by clearing her throat. "Five of you, go find warm cloths—lots of it—and start rewarming the thawed skin. The rest of you guys can keep using the seawater to melt the ice. Once you're done, carry him onto your ship and get him to the cleanest area you have."

The men look at her in disbelief—incredulous that a child was issuing orders to them. They turn to Kuma for his say, and are equally shocked to see him nodding in agreement with the little girl's instructions. Thankfully, the motion springs them into action, and Nao is left to watch them obey her every command. Power, she decides rather mischievously, is a damn fun thing to have.

Nao obscures a satisfied smirk. "Kuma-san, find me a sharp edge," she pauses, eyeing the giant's size with wariness. "A big one, and then help get him onto the ship. Try to sterilize the edge if you can find a flame," she adds, and now he, too, carries out her commands.

An hour passes with Nao dawdling on the raft, waiting for Saul to be completely free of his icy encasing, and begins to paddle her own way towards the boat. It's a long and tedious process, considering her size, but she eventually arrives at the same time as the men finish.

"Can someone help me up?" she reluctantly asks for help, eyeing the height between her and the ship's deck cautiously.

The men look at each other, then at Nao, before eagerly volunteering to help the small child. She, they had assumed, was an important guest of their leader, and someone that a monstrously robust man like Kuma willingly followed. They would do anything their superiors would ask, and Nao, regardless of how small she is, certainly fell into the category of a superior if Kuma did her bidding. (In reality, all these events came out of sheer luck, but she had no qualms against letting them believe otherwise.)

She smiles graciously as the men pull her on board—her first non-heartstopping entrance onto a ship—and internalizes an impish laugh at how platonically smitten they are with what she appears to be.

"Kuma-san, the scalpel," she instinctively refers to the sharp object he holds by a medical term, and pales as she realizes her blunder.

She hurries to grab the thing out of his hand and tries to obscure her panicked expression. Rayleigh and Dragon might have given her an opportunity to act as she pleased without worrying about keeping up a childlike appearance, but that doesn't necessarily mean she wanted to reveal her hand to everyone she met.

She approaches Saul with a pretense of professionalism, the sharp object grasped loosely in her hand with a finger rested on the end opposite to the blade for precision. Cutting away at unhealthy tissue, she remembers, is the second step to curing frostbite.

It doesn't take long for her to get lost in her work. (Was she still on the boat, or in that hospital that she interned at for two years prior to her d **eaTH**. Metal _waLls around_ her? Or _whitE? Ste **RiLe whITe**_? S ** _hrapNel in her HanD_** S? oR is she h _olding a **sCalpeL after a** ll?_)

She never notices the discreet whispers exchanged among Kuma and the recently arrived Rayleigh and Dragon.

* * *

 **Ooooh what do you think they're discussing? Will Nao be able to save Saul with her knowledge from her past life? The world may never know… until my next update, that is.**

 **Did y'all enjoy the chapter?**

 **If you did (or even if you didn't), please leave a review! It helps a ton with how I decide to proceed with the storyline. Who knows, maybe your reviews will persuade me to take a different course of action. (:**

 **Have a great day!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hello my lovely readers! I tried to update as quickly as possible!**

 **Enjoy~**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

"That was a test," Rayleigh sighs, "and you damn well failed."

Nao and Rayleigh stand alone in the Revolutionary Army's sickbay, finally getting to the conversation that had begged to be had ever since Rayleigh had observed her odd behavior at the lighthouse.

Nao looks up at the man, mouth gaping at his blunt statement. "What do you _mean_?"

"I don't know what you are—an oracle, a time-traveler, or the second coming of Jesus himself—and I don't particularly _care_ , but you _do_ intend on living while traveling with me, right?" Rayleigh asks the half-rhetorical question, giving Nao the most exasperated look she has ever seen over the course of two lifetimes.

She practically gawks at the wild accusations slipping out of his mouth in the heat of the moment—two of which are a little too close to the truth for comfort. Her mind frantically searches for an appropriate response, but there's nothing she can think of to say. In fact, there's probably nothing to say. She knows exactly what Rayleigh is referring to—her unfiltered shows of knowledge eons beyond her physical age are, at minimum, well worthy of raising suspicions. All she can muster is a weak defense of her actions. "I-I saved his _life_!"

Rayleigh's eyebrow quirks. He's not angry. Instead, he seems wholly disappointed—like a teacher preparing to chide his student. "Yes, after _I_ volunteered you to do it. Do you really think Dragon had no personnel who could deal with a common issue like frostbite?"

"No…" she relents, looking away in shame.

This reaction, though no one will ever know it, is merely the watered down version of how she actually feels. Her mental landscape, unlike the rather mild expression on her face, is in complete shambles (a total shitshow, if she's allowed to be blunt).

She doesn't particularly _mind_ whether or not Rayleigh knows of her secret. It would just be a hell of a lot easier to maneuver if he didn't know.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. The pause in their conversation gives her the perfect chance to truly reflect on who Rayleigh is. It's then that she fully grasps who stands in front of her. It's Rayleigh, but it isn't the one who'd become Luffy's wise and nurturing teacher, nor is it the one who'd gain a renewed hope for the world. It's the Rayleigh who'd just lost his captain—the Rayleigh still utterly consumed with grief and contempt. The man is exasperated with her presence—a burden who he had taken with him on a whim.

"I-I see things," she says abruptly, stuttering.

His eyes flicker open. "Come again?"

"I _see_ things," she reiterates, knowing damn well she is lying through her teeth.

"I… I see…" he trails off, and she's sure she's gotten him completely confused.

As quickly as she can, she isolates the things she _can_ reveal that won't bring too many consequences. Eventually, she settles for a half-lie that _probably_ won't bring Armageddon to her door(ship?)step. She doesn't want to stretch the lie out too far, but staying as vague as she was being would get her nowhere. "Ever since I was born, I could see things. I can, uh, remember my birth, but nothing before that. I just sort of, well, _knew_ things."

She's downplaying her knowledge of the world, and she's certain that Rayleigh is aware of it, but finally a great weight feels like it's been lifted off of hers shoulders. For far too long she had internalized her secret, and for just as long she had been labeled as an anomaly—a freak by the standards of freaks. He's the first person she's (sort of) told of the (eerily too literal) skeleton in her closet, and—surprisingly to her—he seems to be taking it rather well.

"An oracle, huh?" he comments to himself, words so hushed she can barely hear them being said under his breath. "Roger and I met a few people like you on our last voyage."

She nearly falls over. A decade had probably been taken off of her life from how stressed she had been trying (though not succeeding in the slightest) to obscure the (sort of) truth behind her uncannily mature persona, and here Rayleigh is barely giving a hum of recognition at her sudden confession. (She swears she's already getting grey hairs from the absurdity of it all.) It's too casual—too _normal_ of a response for a revelation of that magnitude. (For fuck's sake, she was practically confessing to being a person capable of screwing the world a hundred times over as she so pleased!)

"That's it?" she cried incredulously, beside herself with frustration at the lackluster reaction.

"What?" he asks, looking at her quizzically. "I'm more than ten times your age, Nao. There's people like you everywhere. Fishman Island, Skypiea—I could go on. I'm sure there was a lack of people like you in the North Blue, but we're in the Grand Line. An oracle is probably the most worldly thing you'll see in this part of the ocean," he laughs, and for a brief moment he seems to look beyond the small, dingy kitchen they were in to reminisce over his past adventures.

Her frustration with his vapid acknowledgement of her life-long held secret promptly dies away—leaving as quickly as it had come. How foolish was she to think she was special in a world where odd attributes were what kept one alive?

"Ah, pardon me for getting nostalgic—and for scaring you like that. It's just… been a while."

He doesn't expand on what he means, but she doesn't need him to. It's obvious that he was still struggling to cope with Roger's death and the symbolic end to his time venturing the seas. Inside her, something stirs—a feeling akin to nostalgia for those same adventures she had once witnessed through a screen. (She lo **veD that ShOW**. **Love LoVE LOVED iT**. When fat **heR** and m **OthEr** were **away AWaY AWAY** , that's all she would ever watch.)

"It's… fine…" she says awkwardly, not quite sure what she should do to comfort the man.

Apparently, though, he needs no consolation, as his expression shifts to one full of determination. "I will, however, have to change our plan."

"What?"

She stills in alarm. As far as she had known, there hadn't _been_ a plan—they were simply going to be traveling companions that went wherever the sea willed them to go. After all, she did have another decade or so to kill before anything _too_ important happened.

Rayleigh notices the panic and attempts to quell her fears. His wording, though, doesn't make her feel any better. "We're not going to drift around anymore."

"What do you _mean_? I won't go back to that whore house just because you think I'm too young or too fragile to be on the seas," she states firmly, finally gathering enough courage to look Rayleigh directly in his eyes. Of course, that momentary lapse of courage quickly dissipates, and internally she curses herself for her lack of a filter. (You'd think after the whole Ohara shitshow, she'd have learned to keep her mouth shut, huh?)

"First and foremost, don't say whore, brat. It's weird coming from you." He looks her up and down. "Secondly, though you are a little too green for sailing, I won't be leaving you to Fate's mercy just yet," he teases.

Nao looks up at him, now utterly bemused at what he was getting at.

"We're going to Sabaody," he states it matter-of-factly, and she knows this decision is indisputable. " _Immediately_ ," he adds to further get his point across.

Nao can't help but question his motives—it never was in her nature to bite her tongue. "B-But why?"

He looks her dead in the eye, and for reasons beyond what she can comprehend, she finds herself unable to look away.

"I don't what it is that was supposed to happen here on Ohara, but I'm absolutely sure it wasn't this. There's a feeling I can't push away about how things turned out. The longer we're in the area, the more I feel displaced. This may come across as an accusation, but I'm guessing that your prior knowledge about what was going to transpire here had something to do with it. If there's a determined order to things, and your actions are what's messing with it, I can't have you roaming around while you're still so young. You can't even take care of yourself enough to hide your seeing abilities from people you've just met."

Nao's blood drains from her face. He doesn't know it, but he had hit the nail right on the mark, and what he was describing—the weird sense of _wrongness_ in Ohara—Nao had felt too. It's as if the Universe was trying to deny that what had happened had happened.

Still, she refuses to have her fight against Fate end here. "But—" she begins a weak protest, but immediately it's batted down.

"I'm not denying you the right to sail forever, Nao, but if you wish to survive on the seas, it'd be best if you trained first."

"Huh?" The disgruntled noise slips out without a second thought.

It's obvious what he's hinting at, but what it is is so ludicrous that she's positive the past three years have been a hellishly long fever dream.

"I suggest you train under me until you're capable enough of setting sail on your own. Of course, I'll often be busy, but I'm sure you'll be a force to be reckoned with before you're as greyed as me," he jokes, confirming her suspicions. "You know, even though it feels like something unfixable has been done, I look forward to what you'll do, Nao."

She really can't believe her ears. "I—"

What she's about to say—whether it was a word of consent to his plan or not—doesn't matter, as Rayleigh quickly cuts her off once more. (If this man couldn't make a shish kebab out of her in two seconds flat, she might've said something about his discourteous habit.)

"I've already sent Hachi to Sabaody ahead of us. He'll be asking Shakky to get us discreetly onto the island. Dragon has given us a small boat as thanks for your treatment of Saul. Grab as many supplies as you can," he informs her, and before a word against his decision can be said, he's vanished from the kitchen.

Left alone now, Nao suppresses a frustrated shout. Who the hell did this guy think he was?

But despite his awful sales-pitch for the future he'd chosen for her, she finds herself obeying his order. She scavenges the area for necessities—food, water, and anything else if the sort—and then she is off.

It what seems like a millisecond, she and Rayleigh are back on another tiny, shabby boat, waving behind them to yet another group of people that she'd probably (and perhaps unfortunately) cross paths with once again.

As their ships part ways, her line of sight shifts to the area where Saul laid—still unconscious, but undoubtedly alive. Dragon had assured them that he'd 'take care' of Saul, and though Nao isn't exactly sure what he meant by such an unspecific promise, she's confident that it's something that'll raise hell in a few years. She can't help but shake at the sight of it—not in fear, but rather in giddy anticipation. In front of her, disappearing into the horizon, is the first bit of proof that things, indeed, could be changed.

Her first few splashes in the timeline had been made, the ripples already forming and, without any intentions of doing so, she had dragged Rayleigh into the waters of time, too.

* * *

 **Ta-da! The ball has been thrown, and my god is it rolling hehe. I can' wait for your guys' reactions to where I'm taking little Nao in this story.**

 **Did you guys enjoy the chapter? Worry not, I won't be making Nao super strong. I do intend on keeping her greatest strength her intellect. How do you guys feel about Rayleigh and Nao's begrudging partnership? Will Nao ever learn to not do things on a whim?**

 **Leave a review if you enjoyed, or even if you didn't! I'd love to hear from y'all (and we're so close to 50 reviews!)!**

 **Have a great day! ~**


	11. Chapter 11

**Time-skip!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.**

* * *

A lanky girl sits haphazardly on a bar stool, one bent leg propped up on a barrel beside her, the other one drawn close to her chest to provide space for her to lazily droop her head.

She is no more than eleven, yet exudes a level of blatant confidence more fit for a king. She shows no regard for the establishment she's in—a dingy bar shelved in some small corner of Sabaody Archipelago. Two chunks of loosely braided hair frame her delicate features, while the rest of it cascades down her back, reaching her waist. Though her appearance suggests that she is harmless, unnervingly sharp eyes look up through wispy bangs to examine her associates. The bartender simply shakes his head at her usual display of too brave or too foolish courage.

Beside her is a man befitting of that very same brazen nerve. He is a legend of a pirate—once coined as the Dark King, though now he's assumed the role of a ship coater, nothing more and nothing less. Yet still, his very being in and of itself demanded respect, but he too sat as if he had not a single care in the world.

The bartender doesn't bother to pay extra attention to the unintentionally flashy pair—he's grown used to their antics. The two often used his bar as a place for… _negotiations_ , and after a few years shy or a decade or so, he had grown desensitized to their presences. He does, however, do a doubletake at the person they had dragged along with them.

"You and your captain…" their guest grumbled, his head hanging low so as to hide the exasperated expression on his face. "The two of you are gonna ask me for favors until the day I die, aren't you? The nerve of you—dragging me to this place and not even bothering to buy me a drink!"

Garp is clearly complaining, yet the ghost of a grin exposes him for how he really feels.

"If I buy you a drink, are you gonna take Nao with you back to Foosha village? She's going to obtain quite the reputation if she continues to make such a ruckus here," Rayleigh adds in the last part as a small jab to his pupil.

Nao huffs, pretending to be upset with her teacher's request. In reality, she is overwhelmed with excitement.

Finally.

 _Finally_.

Rayleigh was _finally_ going to allow her to escape his watchful eye—one she had been under for a little less than a full decade. The years, though she would never let him hear this, had passed by quickly, and before she knew it, she was deemed old enough and well trained enough to travel on her own—sort of. It took awhile (seriously, like five fuckin' years) but she had eventually convinced him to pass her on to the only marine he had ever trusted.

"Why is it that you and Roger always come to _me_ for your ridiculous requests? You _do_ recall that I _am_ a marine, right? If anything, I should get you finally put on an execution stand for the messy era that your little group began!" Garp threatens, though the two around him know he's only putting up a farce for the ex-pirate. It was a well known secret among pirates; if enough time was spent with the gruff vice admiral, he'd soon grow a soft spot for whoever that individual was, even if they were a pirate.

"I'd hate to get technical here, but if we weren't constituents in your life, you'd probably be out of a job. Who would feed the navy's ego if it weren't for pirates?" Rayleigh teases, speaking to what should've been an enemy as if he were a dear comrade. "Besides, don't you remember her face? She's the kid who got an entire fleet sent into Mama-san's house."

Garp turns to Nao, squinting, before his face lights up in recognition. "You!"

She looks up at him quizzically, and cocks her head to the side. "Yes, me."

Rayleigh practically cackles at the odd reunion that neither of the two parties ever wanted. "Since we're all already acquainted, why don't you do us this one favor! It'll make up for that blunder all those years ago."

"B-Blunder?!" Garp sputters at the accusation. "That brat's the one who started talking about Ohara in the middle of some random shop! Because of her, I lost my new errand boy for a month when Rosinante decided to take the blame for her screw up. Do you know how much paperwork I had to do by myself?!"

His argument would've been solid if it weren't for the fact that he, too, was speaking of Ohara in the middle of a random shop. It didn't matter too much, though—he seemed more upset at the fact that Rosinante couldn't file his papers for him than anything.

"I can't really answer that. Pirates don't really do paperwork," Rayleigh scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "But if it's all the same to you, Nao can do the paperwork for you now!"

Garps eyes glitter in a way Nao never thought was possible. "She can do paperwork, huh?"

Rayleigh nods, a mischievous grin adorning his face. "She can do paperwork."

"... I guess having an extra hand on the voyage back to Foosha won't be too horrible to have." Garp pauses, doing a doubletake. "Wait, how do you know about Foosha village?!"

"We've been acquainted for, what, four decades now? I think I know you well enough to guess that you'd take Ace in as your own." Rayleigh gives his company a saddened smile—one that Nao had come to realize meant that he was reminiscing over his times with Roger. "That's probably why my captain asked you to watch over his kid, and not some old drunk like me."

"I mean, you did alright with raising me," Nao comments.

Rayleigh raises his eyebrows in surprise. "What's this? You're finally going to admit that I'm a phenomenal guardian?"

Garp can't help but reply in place of Nao, ever so eager to bag on his former enemy's first mate. "Weren't you just going on about how you're nothing but a washed up drunk?"

"Aren't we around the same age, Garp?"

"Aren't I doing you a huge favor, Rayleigh?"

The man perks up. "So you _are_ gonna take this kid off my hands? Great! We already loaded her stuff onto your ship when you arrived, so don't worry about that." Rayleigh smiles slyly, knowing he's being ridiculously disrespectful to Garp.

If anyone else were to pull such a ballsy move, the world very well may have imploded, but since it's Rayleigh, Garp lets it slide with an obviously fake laugh. "How convenient! That's very generous of you. Now you can spend the time you would've spent packing on filing papers for me instead! Since you _clearly_ know where the ship is docked, go ahead of me, will ya? I have some catching up to do with Rayleigh over here."

Nao simply nods, knowing that any form of protest was futile with the stubborn man. Once the move of consent is made, she is practically kicked out of the damn bar. Reluctantly, and as agonizingly slow as she can do it, she finds her way to the navy's vessel, and just as hesitantly, she climbs on.

The deck is barren of any sign of life, and an uncalled for chill hits her. She supposes she shouldn't be _too_ surprised; after spending so much time at sea, the marines flocked to land when they were given the opportunity to. She just wishes that at least _one_ person had been there to greet her—it'd be quite awkward to have them all return to a foreign girl rummaging through confidential papers in their vice admiral's office.

But there's no helping it; she'd much rather wind up in a strange confrontation with some of Garp's subordinates than venture back into the bar and get involved in whatever nonsense the two monsters were cooking up.

Within two seconds of entering the office, she realizes that she _didn_ 't, in fact, choose the lesser of two evils.

Sitting casually in Garp's chair is a man far too familiar to her. Kuzan—another monstrously powerful guy. His legs are casually crossed, and he leans back at a leisurely angle. He doesn't pay her any mind—he doesn't even view her as a threat—and continues to read the day's newspaper, not once glancing her way. He isn't even _trying_ to seem intimidating, yet his mere existence is enough to make Nao's knees feel as if they're about to buckle beneath her. Behind him, though, is an even _worse_ presence—a ghost of the past.

Donquixote Rosinante is on his hands and knees, panickedly searching through one of the (surprisingly) many filing cabinets in the rather tiny cabin. He doesn't move to acknowledge her presence—doesn't even bother to adjust the messy mop of hair on his head that often blocked his peripheral vision. He is fully enthralled in his menial task.

A tick mark appears on Nao's head. She understands a slight lack of alarm from the two men—she _is_ just a child after all—but this complete dismissal bruises her ego a little too much, and her time with Rayleigh did _not_ teach her how to be docile.

" _Hello_?" she snaps before the intelligent part of her brain can put a filter on her mouth.

The two men's reactions drastically differ.

Whereas Kuzan's eyes barely flicker up at her before back down to the newspaper, Rosinante jumps in surprise, slamming his head against the pulled out drawers and muttering curses as he turned to see what in the world had startled him so much.

If he recognizes her, he doesn't show it. He cocks his head to the side and returns the abrupt greeting. "Hello? Are you lost?"

Nao looks at Rosinante, then at Kuzan. She figures it'd be easier to go along with it and have Garp explain later.

"Er, you could say that? Vice admiral Garp wants me to do his paperwork for him."

Their expressions remain unchanging until she mentions Garp's paperwork. Once the word registers in their head, their faces morph to give her pitiful looks, and Nao finds herself baffled at the absurdity of it all. What's more strange, though, is that they don't doubt her claim in the slightest.

"Garp's taken to putting children to work now, eh?" Kuzan's question comes off as more of a statement of the obvious than anything.

Rosinante gravely nods his head as he seems to look past Nao, shivering once he begins to recount the memory. "Garp has no mercy when it comes to his written workload. I remember when I left his company for a month 'cause of Sengoku's orders, and, once I came back, I was stuck filing his papers from dawn to dusk for half a year."

"Half a year? That's harsh, even for him. When he and I were in the same fleet, the greenies would say that doing Garp's paperwork was the final thing you had to do to join the marines. What did you do to deserve that?" Kuzan asks, his interest finally piqued by the extremity of Garp's punishment.

Rosinante's complexion turns rosy. "Do you remember the incident the marines had with Mama-san?"

Nao's perks up—it'd be easier to get her reveal over with now rather than later—and responds in place of Kuzan. "I remember that."

Both men look at her curiously.

"That's some memory you have there, kid," Kuzan comments. He pauses to do some calculations in his head. "You couldn't have been more than three when it happened."

"Well, yeah, I _was_ three when it happened, but I was also _there_ when it happened, which kind of helps with the whole remembering thing." Nao's cheeky reply leaves them both wholly confused, and rightfully so. Sabaody was ridiculously far from Mama-san's small island in the North Blue.

Nao can practically see the exact moment of realization for Rosinante. A devious smile dances on her lips as an expression of horrified shock crosses his face.

"Kid from the dango shop?" he asks.

"Kid from the dango shop," she confirms, and his jaw nearly hits the floor.

Kuzan stares at them both suspiciously. "What are you two going on about? How does the incident with Mama-san relate to your punishment?"

Now Nao looks just as horrified as Rosinante did. She had said too much in front of the wrong man, and while Rosinante and Garp may have let it slide when she revealed her knowledge of Ohara the first time around, she doubted Kuzan would be quite as forgiving as his comrades.

However, before her guise can be exposed without her even leaving the island, the other man involved in the Mama-san scandal bursts through the door.

"Kuzan? Why on earth are you on my boat? And why aren't all my papers filed, Rosi?"

Garp stands at the entrance to his office in complete and utter confusion. He almost looks just as he did when Nao had seen him no more than an hour before, save for the bruise that was forming underneath his right eye. There's no time for the new injury to be addressed, though, as Kuzan drops his air of casualness.

"Headquarters wants us to head for Mariejois."

Now no one looks quite as nonchalant as they had seemed only moments before.

Even Garp seems surprised. "The Holy Land? Why?"

There's a sinking feeling in Nao's chest. As far as she knew, only one major incident occurred in Mariejois prior to the beginning of the main storyline—an incident she had wanted no part of.

Kuzan confirms it for her.

"There's been a slave rebellion."

* * *

 **Nao's time with Rayleigh has come to an end! :( But Rosinante has finally re-entered the scene! Did you guys like the chapter? Quite a few years have passed, so how do you think Nao has grown?**

 **She's headed for Mariejois, too! Her first battle's coming close. :D**

 **It'd mean the world to me if you could leave a review! We're so close to 50!  
**

 **Have a great day. ~**


	12. Chapter 12

**Holy heck, you guys blew me out of the water with all those kind reviews!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

Time changes many things.

How dreaded Garp's favors are is not one of them.

"Kuzan?"

"No."

Garp huffs in irritation, arms crossed as he gives his fellow vice admiral a half-assed glare. "I haven't even asked you for the favor yet!"

Kuzan rolls his eyes at his friend's feeble attempts at persuading him to listen to his most-likely ridiculous request. "Garp, nothing you say will make me want to do whatever it is you're about to ask me to do."

Nao watches the scene play out with a disbelieving stare. Their conversation is sounding all too incredulously familiar to the one Garp had had with her former guardian all those years ago,(How shitty could his requests _really_ be?) and she remembers exactly how _that_ run-in with Garp and Rosinante had turned out.

Garp gives up on his attempt at persuading the icey (both in attitude and in physique) vice admiral and directs his focus on a more susceptible marine on board. The devious grin plastered on his face is enough to make Nao sweat. There's not a single damn good thing that could come out of a look like that.

"Rosinante," Garp practically sings, and Nao swears she's never seen a grown man look so miserable.

The summoned marine appears to be on the brink of tears. "Yes, Garp-san?"

"It's been awhile since you and Nao have seen each other! While Kuzan and I go tend to whatever it is that's going on in Mariejois, why don't you stay on the ship and 'watch' for any runaways?" Garp winks as he suggests this, and shivers run down the spines of everyone present.

"Garp… you do recall that we're supposed to be rounding the escaped slaves up, not helping the escape through our own underlings, right?" Kuzan asks wearily, though he doesn't exactly object to Garp's idea of feigned ignorance.

"Those spoiled brats will survive without their precious slaves," Garp spits out, looking as if he's consumed something particularly nasty.

He has a point, and everyone knows it.

Kuzan sighs, weighing out his options. Argue with the ever so stubborn Garp, or let the man do as he pleases and save a few lives while doing so. The right answer is obvious—the justice behind orders have been muddled for him since Ohara anyways. "Whatever. If word of this gets out, you're the one talking to Sengoku."

Garp waves his comrade off, grinning to exemplify how glad he is that he's getting his way. "It'll be fine. Sengoku likes me more than you anyways."

"I'm sure he does…"

And with that, the two begin to make their leave, not sparing their two baffled subordinates a second glance.

"Don't we get a say in this?" Rosinante sputters, still not conditioned to Garp's maddening logic despite all the years he's spent with the compulsive man. "You know I'm fully capable of engaging in combat."

" _Rosinante_." Garp makes it apparent that his order, regardless of how lightly he was wording it, is final.

The blond sighs and falls back, adhering to his superior's command. He knows it's useless to speak against a higher-up, especially when said-higher-up is _Garp_ —a man infamous for his obstinance. His disapproval of Garp's decision goes unnoticed though—obscured by him slipping as he had moved away from Garp.

The vice admiral cracks a smile at Rosinante's clumsiness before he continues his departure, leaving Nao staring at his shrinking figure in complete and utter shock.

Nearly a decade has passed by ( _Nearly a fuckin' decade!_ ) and she's _still_ being handed over to the clutz as a babysitting job.

"So, uh, how have you been, Nao-chan?" He refuses to look at her directly—still probably guilting himself over the tragedy that had occurred after her own slip up.

She glances up at him curiously, not quite understanding how anyone could ever feel that horrible over an event that was out of their hands. If there needs to be someone to blame for that incident, then the fault falls onto the nosy patrons who alerted the marines, or even Nao herself. The boy is still visibly gutted by the whole ordeal, and Nao can't help but feel _bad_ for starting the whole thing.

But that doesn't stop her from responding in a snarky way—being snappy is how she _survived_ life with Rayleigh.

"I'm doing okay, save for the fact that I was homeless at the age of—what, three? By the way, you can drop the suffixes. Just 'Nao' is fine. It's a lot better than the shit I've been called since my days at the whore house." The response comes out harsher than she intends it too, but it's too late to retract now. The damage is done.

Rosinante flinches at her crude language, and Nao instantly regrets her headstrong approach. This is, after all, someone she's probably going to be stuck with for quite a long time—it'd be easier to start things off on a good note. Before he can scramble to say something to alleviate the tenseness of the situation, Nao continues her verbal autobiography.

"It hasn't been bad, though." Now a real smile graces her lips. "I've met good people since then."

She thinks she might have imagined it, but Rosinante seems to visibly deflate in relief. "I'm glad to hear that."

Nao raises an eyebrow at the exaggerated response. "What? Don't tell me you've been fretting over that this entire time."

The slight blush answers her question for her. "You're as well spoken as ever," he mutters, attempting to change the subject.

"Seriously? It's definitely fine for you to rid yourself of any ill feelings. The incident was my fault. If I hadn't mentioned Oha—"

Her attempt at easing his guilt is met with an absurdly large hand shoved against her mouth, muffling her words. Externally, she glares at him. Internally, she is absolutely bewildered. (Who did these marines think they _are_?) His eyes flit around in a panic before he slowly lifts his hand, using his free one to motion for her to keep quiet.

She does as told, not desiring another palm to the face.

He uses his now freed hand to snap his fingers. " _Silent_."

She wants to strangle the man. "You nearly suffocated me with that ludicrously large hand of yours just to _activate your devil fruit_?"

He gives her a blank look. "Yeah?"

"Why?"

Now it's his turn to look at her disbelievingly. "You still want to talk about government secrets freely after everything that happened last time?"

She gives _him_ a blank look. "Why not?

Deep down inside, she knows exactly why not, but her time with the infamously audacious Dark King has left her desensitized to the consequences of miniscule actions. While she was with him, she was far too busy fretting over the consequences of senselessly extravagant actions. Pissing off a couple marines because of slightly-above-average knowledge of Ohara is the least of her worries.

Rosinante narrows his eyes at her. "Are you messing with me?"

"Sure." She isn't, but she might as well go along with his assumption to save time for both of them. "Why are you here with me again?"

"What? Is my company not enjoyable?" he jokes, but when Nao refuses to forfeit even a fake laugh, he clears his throat and continues. "It's a secret, Nao."

He gives her a secretive look before turning away, intent on making the exchange seem as dramatic as possible. To give it more flair, he pulls out a cigarette and begins to light it—a move that would've been effective to his cause had he not lit himself on fire in the process. The bill of his marine's cap—in a way that not even a freak of nature like Nao can understand—bursts into flames, yet he still has a stupidly at-ease expression on his face.

She sighs and walks towards him, hand stretched out. He views her suspiciously through his peripheral vision, but doesn't know what to make of her actions.

Then she reaches out and, with her bare hands, extinguishes the flame.

"Clutz," she mutters, disregarding her singed fingers. "Don't go and try to be cool if you know you're gonna set yourself on fire in the process."

She grabs the lighter from his hand, wincing as it brushes against her burned hand. Before she can do anything with it, though, Rosinante has batted the object out of her grasp.

"What are you doing?! Let me see your hands," he commands, grabbing her wrists to turn her palms towards him. He crouches on the floor and observes the burns intently, earning a flush from the startled girl. "Why did you just stick your hand into the fire like that?"

"Because… you were on fire?" she replies, not quite understanding the cause of his concern.

"I'm used to it! It happens a lot. You hurt yourself while putting it out when I could've done it myself," he chastises, getting up to grab the first aid kit.

She's watches him, amused by his antics, but doesn't impede him. She's fully capable of taking care of her own wounds—especially something as minor as tiny burns—but watching the man fumble with bandages sounds much more appealing.

He, curiously **enough,** isn't hopeless with it. In fact, based off of how quickly he does it, he's rather competent with taking care of wounds. Nao chides herself for underestimating him—not taking things seriously enough could very well be the cause of her demise in an unpredictable world like this (and she would be damned if she met her end via the hands of a man as clumsy as Rosinante).

"Thank you," she says, not too proud to be above giving words of gratitude. Of course (because she's a mouthy goddamn imbecile) she continues to speak. "You probably shouldn't be so kind if you're going undercover, though. It might land you in some trouble."

He stiffens, but doesn't seem all that shocked by her casual mention of his classified assignment. "Do you not have a filter, or do you just enjoy leaking government secrets?"

Nao cracks a small smile—a genuine one this time—and laughs. "A little bit of both."

"So what are you? An oracle? Some kind of prodigal spy plotting against the government?" he inquires half-seriously.

The question doesn't catch her off guard anymore—she's gotten it more times than she could count now. She gets it so often that she doesn't even miss a beat as she chirps back a cheeky response. "Now what kind of mysterious figure would I be if I just outed all my secrets to you like that?"

The reply is said in a joking manner, but the glint in her eyes makes it clear to Rosinante that he won't get a better response than that. "Fair enough."

"Why aren't you on that mission yet, though?" She says it in a nonchalant way, but in truth the question has been weighing on her mind since she had gotten on board a few days before.

He eyes her oddly, but eventually writes her off as not a foe. "I was supposed to be dispatched awhile ago, but Garp-san insisted on staying at Sabaody for a few extra days, and then we got the distress call from Mariejois. I'll probably leave after this whole ordeal is done with."

Nao turns away from him, pretending to be especially fascinated with an old clock hanging above Garp's desk. (In actuality, she's closer than she's ever been to shitting bricks, and a little desperate to hide that from the surprisingly observant man.) If memory serves her right, Flevance's extermination had happened right before the start of the new year—right before the slave rebellion at Mariejois. Law would've surely made his way to the Donquixote Pirates, and _should've_ met Rosinante by now.

But Rosinante is very much _not_ with his brother, very much _not_ with Law, and very much present in front of her.

She might have wanted to screw the world over, but her plan still needed the same survivors to exist this time around, too.

Rosinante shouldn't be here.

And judging by the explosion that rocks the ship soon after she has that thought, Fate doesn't want her here either.

* * *

 **Dun dun dunnn! An explosion, but from what? Hehehe Nao gets herself into a mess, again!**

 **Did you guys enjoy the little talk with Rosinante? Isn't our favorite blond the cutest? :D**

 **Can we beat the number of reviews we got last time? I love you guys so much! I'm sorry I'm not directly pming you guys to thank you for your review, but I still adore every single one of you!**

 **Have a great day!~**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

 **TW: Gory-ish**

* * *

"Nao, wait in the office for Garp or Kuzan to return," Rosinante commands, and for a second she wonders whether or not he knows who he's talking to.

He proceeds without checking to see if she had listened to his ludicrous order—a fatal mistake when it comes to someone as stubborn as Nao. She waits for the sound of his footsteps to grow faint—so quiet that she can barely hear it—before she follows after.

Rosinante really is a naive man.

The unmistakable sound of war—the roar of gunfire and the agonized shouts of the almost-dead—penetrates the ship's steel walls, echoing throughout the hallway in an eerily muffled fashion.

Nao doesn't flinch at it. Her years with Rayleigh had hardened her through unimaginable means, and now commonplace atrocities in a cruel world are just that— _normal_. (Her ability to function as a human being is more fucked than ever, which is saying a damn lot since the Universe had deemed her screwed from the very start.)

She can make out the last bit of his shadow as he turns each corner. As far as she can linger behind, she will; she can't afford to get caught by the man she's tailing. Rosinante is too kind of a person to let a child get caught up in battle.

But things never do go quite as planned.

"You know, Nao, you're a pretty impudent kid," Rosinante comments, stopping her in her tracks. She attempts to move away from the man—perhaps make her way back to the office without confirming her presence—but by the time she gathers the nerve to try it, it's too late.

Rosinante stands directly in front of her, hands on his hips and leaning over in a manner that emphasizes just how much he dwarfs her. He shoots her a half-assed annoyed glare; it's one that betrays just how angry he is at her for following him—as in not at all.

When he realizes he's getting nowhere with his stern facade, he drops it. "Why do you have to always put me in a hard place?" he asks somewhat rhetorically.

Nao offers him a closed-eye smile. "Because if I didn't give others a hard time, I'd have a hard time myself. Following everyone's orders is just what the complacent and cowardly do. I'd rather die doing something that matters than die cowering in the corner."

"If you die, I'll probably end up doing Garp's paperwork until the day I cross over too." She wilts at this, presuming that he's about to send her back. Then he flicks her forehead. "So stay behind me when enemies are around, and don't do anything too stupid."

"Aye aye, Captain." And though she has no intentions of doing as he says, she beams at him anyways.

He gives a sigh, already exhausted. "Just don't die."

"Now that I can probably do."

And like that, the two begin to rush towards the general area where the explosion had come from—the middle of their deck. As the rush through the seemingly never ending halls, another boom resounds from the ship, this time one from the spot Nao had just vacated.

"Good thing you're stubborn, kid," Rosinante comments, trying to make light of the situation as he spares the now-smoldering office a lingering glance. "Garp's going to have us filling out paperwork for _days_."

"You're only now seeing my stubbornness as a good quality? Maybe you really _are_ only suited for menial tasks," she quips, indulging herself in a little friendly verbal-war with the blond.

"With a tongue that sharp, you could just slit your own belly instead of dragging me down with you," Rosinante snaps back, though the little smirk dancing on his lips lets her know that nothing she's saying is being taken personally. "Are you _sure_ you're just a brat?"

"Shut up and get rid of the enemy already, idiot."

They finally make it onto the ship's deck, and the banter they had going on between them is silenced. The scene they are faced with can be described as no less that atrocious—the real epitome of the damned word. Blood smears the now-splintered wooden planks, and from the small fires that ensued from the blast, Nao can make out what looks to be what's left of people's' limbs.

She grits her teeth at the sheer ugliness of it all, but doesn't give any further reaction.

Rosinante begins to wonder just how much Nao had seen for such a watered down response to the gruesome sight of battle. He gently places a hand on her shoulder and pushes her behind him, using the other hand to point to the sides of their ship.

Though the deck holds no sign of life aside from Nao and Rosinante, the grunts of people struggling to climb aboard comes loud and clear. Rosinante draws a raised finger to his lips, inducing silence through his devil fruit, and quickly hands Nao a small dagger.

"I hope you're okay with using this," he says as the weapon is grasped by her, not sure if he wants her answer to be yes or no.

"More okay with it than I am with dying."

"Fair enough," he concedes before he allows noise to enter their ears again.

For the first—and most likely the last—time, she adheres to his previous order, falling back and obscuring herself within the shadows. Her small frame allows her to wedge herself between two structures, effectively hiding her from anyone who isn't actively searching.

But people _are_ actively searching—most of them looking for their own respective places to hide in order to hitch a ride out Mariejois once the conflict has blown over—and before the worst of the fight has ended, Nao is dragged out by what she assumes is an escaped slave. If she were wearing the ragged clothes she had had on before she left Rayleigh back in Sabaody, she might have passed for another escapee, but the marines had allowed her to borrow one of their chore boy uniforms, and now she stands as an enemy to those looking for freedom.

If she were any other child, she might have collapsed in fear.

If she were any other child, she might have been more compassionate.

But she isn't any other child, and she isn't collapsing in fear, or gaining a new sense of compassion.

She's killing.

The escaped slave is a teen, perhaps a few years older than her current physical body, and trembling in both fear and exhilaration. Her pupils are dilated, and it's obvious to Nao just how mentally unstable she is. If Nao were given more time, she could possibly persuade the girl to lay down her shabbily crafted weapon—a piece of wood primitively sharpened at one end.

But time is a privilege—one that she's never been given in both this life and the last. There is no room for peace talks; other escapees are already rushing towards her with the intent to kill.

Nao feels her blood pumping through her veins—it's her first battle in quite a long time—and delicately wraps her fingers along the knife's handle. It's, for lack of a better word, a cute dagger, nowhere near big enough for a real fight, but between the little weapon and the unsophisticated ones that the former slaves held, there is no question of whose weapon is superior.

The handle is cool to the touch, and she finds herself almost _eager_ for the inevitable bloodshed.

It takes a little bit of a courage and a lot of apathy for her to swing, but the moment the blade sinks into her attacker's abdomen, something snaps within Nao. Her expression mirrors that of her assailant—deranged and frenzies—and she lets out a closed-mouth scream when blood splatters onto the white uniform. The teenager drops to the floor, clutching the injury, while Nao continues to plow through the mob.

To her credit, even in that state, she's aiming for places that are not _totally_ lethal—as long as medical aid is given as soon as possible.

They're in enemy territory though—the thought of a medical professional coming to save them is almost unthinkable—and so a trail of corpses and soon-to-be corpses begins to form where she walks. She's a murderer, and she goddamn well knows it.

But this isn't _just_ about bloodlust. There's no empathy in her movements—her heart holds no room for a luxury like that. It doesn't matter if the people she's cutting down were once good people. She can't—and _won't_ —think about the lives her victims could have lived.

She's killing—she really, truly is—but not to kill.

She's killing to _survive_.

( _She has to suRv **iVE**. She won't let them them drag her dOwn DoWN back **dOwN** to that **VoID.**_ )

Whether it's because his face is the only one she knows in the bloody crowd, or because of pure coincidence, her slaughter leads her to where Rosinante, too, is struggling to survive. The sheer number of people is overwhelming, and unlike her, the kindhearted man is putting in a real effort to only incapacitate his enemies. He is significantly worse for wear compared to her in an injury sense, but she is more drenched in blood than they had both ever thought possible.

They're standing back to back now, both of them having been cornered by the unrelenting crowd of desperate escaped slaves. Rosinante's heavy breathing is felt against her own panting figure, and she finds herself throwing a concerned glance behind her to check on his condition. He's down on one knee, struggling to even keep a grip on his sword as he tanks attack after attack. Seeing this, Nao shifts closer to him.

She does it just in time to see an assailant get dangerously close to them—one placed right in one of Rosinante's blind spots.

The man, unlike the others, is wielding a real sword and swings it more assuredly than any of the other frenzied ex-slaves combined.

He is dangerous, and Nao knows it.

Before she can shout a word of warning to her impromptu comrade in battle, the man has already begun to jab the sword towards them, intent on impaling both of them at the same time.

Nao reacts so quickly that she barely realizes it herself. The blade grazes her cheek, slitting open a shallow cut while continuing on its path into Rosinante's turned back. Her body seems to move of its own accord as her hand shoots up, stopping the sword mid-swing. She doesn't flinch as the blade digs into her palm—doesn't even acknowledge the blood squirting from her nearly amputated hand. The red liquid spurts onto Rosinante's neck, catching his attention, and he stares in horror at the spectacle bestowed upon him.

Nao is looking at the attacker right in his eyes—as detached from reality as Rosinante thinks she can ever get. (He's really in for a surprise with that one.) Blood drips from all the various scrapes and minor punctures that riddle her body, pooling beneath their feet. She uses her grip on the sword's blade to hold the man in place, and with her other hand, she delivers a gory killing blow, shoving her own weapon into the man's neck and gouging out a chunk of it.

"Nao!" Rosinante exclaims, abandoning the fight and ditching his sword to grab hold of her tiny, bloodied wrist instead.

She's trembling.

Carefully, he tries to pry her sullied weapon out of her hand, but a recomposed stare from her makes him pause.

"Stop being so concerned over whether or not they die, and start being more concerned over whether or not we live," she snarls, yanking her hand out his and shoving him back towards where his weapon lay unguarded on the ground.

In a split second, she somehow regains her grip on reality, and resumes her role in the skirmish.

But something's changed. She's no longer focused on aiming for the least lethal areas on her helpless opponents.

She's swinging to kill.

Before the death toll can rise much higher, however, a presence of great power overwhelms all those on the ship, eventually leaving only Nao and Rosinante standing.

"Sheesh," Rayleigh starts, "I leave you alone for a few days, and you go and lose it on me."

* * *

 **Rayleigh's back already!**

 **This took a little bit longer than usual to update, and I am so sorry about that, but this past week has been literally _so_ mentally taxing. I hope you guys can understand. I'm back in the flow of writing, though!**

 **I hope you guys enjoyed this bloody chapter! I know I had fun writing it.**

 **If you did enjoy (or even if you didn't) please review! It means the world to me, and I'll admit I was a little underwhelmed by the amount of feedback last week.**

 **I love you guys! Have a great day. ~**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

Rayleigh stands a dozen yards away—the only unscathed figure among the carnage. His eyes bore into Nao's soul, but she doesn't flinch; this is no longer a man who frightens her to her core. The familiarity between them is giving her the courage to be more obstinate—the dog revolting against its owner.

Rosinante stands between the two, ready to engage in a fruitless battle with the legendary Dark King for the sake of the _monster_ behind him.

Nao clenches her teeth, using every bit of will left in her body to force herself to drop the tiny dagger she has so desperately clung onto. She grabs onto the back of Rosinante's shirt, staining it with the blood of who _knows_ how many people as she tugs him out of the way. He spares her a confused glance—probably wondering whether or not she knew what the hell she was doing, or if she was just damn crazy enough to test Rayleigh's mercy by going up against him herself (admittedly, both were pretty fuckin' plausible considering the circumstances)—but luckily, she seems somewhat pacified.

"Rayleigh," she addresses, laughing despite the grim situation that she's found herself caught up in. "You have some impeccable timing. It must be Fate."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Impeccable timing? Fate? What a silly thing to say. I just didn't have enough faith in you to assume you'd sit back and relax while in Mariejois."

She points at the billows of smoke rising from where the office had once been. "If I had been sitting back and relaxing, I'd probably be a pile of ashes right now."

Rosinante looks at the two incredulously, not believing the exchange that he's witnessing. She doesn't blame him, though. Here they are, standing among a pile of malnourished corpses while in the presence of a man who could—and _should_ , considering they are marines—add them to that very pile. The mere thought of it makes him grab onto the hilt of his sword.

"Relax." Rayleigh waves his hand, dismissing Rosinante and scaring the wits out of him as he moves closer. "I'm just a ship coater who just so happened to have stumbled upon this wreck while looking for a particularly annoying brat."

Rayleigh's eyes scan over the result of Nao's killing spree, assessing the situation. "Nao, hurry and dispose of the bodies. Throw them overboard if you have to," he commands once he's thought out a somewhat-viable plan.

Disregarding her injuries, Nao moves out of muscle memory alone.

This is, after all, how life had gone for the past decade or so with Rayleigh. It was like a law of nature for her; he calls the shots, and things usually turn out alright. She's gotten so used to following along with his commands that she doesn't even question why the ship must be clear of any evidence of the massacre.

But this time is different—it isn't just the two of them doing whatever is needed to survive.

Rosinante is here too.

"Stop," Rosinante barks the order at Nao, startling her as he grabs ahold of her shoulder. He doesn't care to acknowledge the vast difference in strength between him and the man standing before him; all he thinks about is his duty—his _justice_. "I understand that you're one of Garp-san's… _acquaintances_ , but what do you intend to do now, Rayleigh-san?"

"Why, isn't it obvious?" Rayleigh looks at him, bemused. "Nao's going to clean up her mess, and we're going to smuggle the slaves out of this hellhole."

Rosinante's face reflects his internal strife, but eventually he chooses his course of action. Strengthening his hold on his sword, he takes an aggressive stance. "I'm sorry, Rayleigh-san, but that's not something I can allow here. Please, I hate to ask this favor of you, but I'll turn a blind eye if you find a different way to help the slaves escape. Garp's… _grandson_ is below deck. He asked me to watch over him as a… _favor_."

Everyone stills at this revelation.

"Why is his _grandson_ in Mariejois?" Rayleigh asks delicately, attempting to not sound too infuriated at Garp's carelessness.

"He was experiencing Garp's idea of training." Rosinante sounds sheepish as he begins to explain. "We were _supposed_ to return to Foosha Village to drop him off with another one of Garp-san's acquaintances, but we weren't given enough time between the visit to Sabaody and the call for backup in Mariejois because…"

"Because Garp had to talk with Rayleigh," Nao finishes, spitting out a wad of blood and cursing her luck. She gives Rayleigh a look to see if they'd come to the same conclusion, and he nods in confirmation. "Since this is one falls on me, I'll take care of it."

Before Rosinante can comprehend what she means by her words, he is crumpled on the floor.

Nao stands above him, shaking the bloodied hand she had used to subdue the naively kind blond. One she's determined that he's actually unconscious, she begins a short inspection of her handiwork—drinking in the images of splattered blood and murdered _children_. Somehow, she feels no pangs of guilt at the sight.

This one truly does fall on her.

"You did that quickly," Rayleigh comments, taking comfortable strides towards her now that Rosinante is out of the picture.

"He wouldn't have stood a chance against you, and I need him alive," she defends her actions, not forfeiting the full truth to the man who had practically raised her. There's a time and place for everything, and in the very middle of a battlefield isn't it for a sudden confession of misplaced guilt.

"Another key piece in your visions?" Rayleigh inquires as he begins to dispose of the bodies.

She nods. "Something like that."

In truth, she just feels _responsible_ , in a way, for Rosinante's presence in Mariejois. Her tiniest actions in the world had somehow pushed his mission further back, and now here this guy was—about to face off with the goddamned _Dark King_ of all people—out of pure happenstance. It'd be strange if Nao _didn't_ feel the least bit accountable for all the shit luck that had surrounded Rosinante since meeting her.

Caught up in their own thoughts, Nao and Rayleigh lapse into a comfortable silence as they work; time _is_ limited, after all. The most prominent threat to their ability to aid the escapees is the speed of the escapees themselves. If the bodies weren't cleared by the time another wave came, they'd be seen as more of a threat than anything.

There is, however, yet another threat—one that Nao has never even _thought_ of accounting for so early in the timeline. _Ace_ —the unexpected guest in their shitshow.

As the number of bodies diminishes, Rayleigh gives them closer inspection. Finally, he settles onto one of a young girl—the very same one that had first charged at Nao with such vigor. She now lay motionless at the very end of the long line of corpses—so devoid of life that it's almost inconceivable that she was ever alive at all.

"Nao," he starts, calling for the young girl's attention. He already looks apprehensive about what he's about to say. Pointing at the teen's corpse, he speaks. "Remove the uniform the marines gave you, and put on whatever salvageable clothing she has."

Nao wants to puke.

"No," she refuses.

There are many, _many_ things Nao would do for Rayleigh's sake—she does trust him with every bit of her being—but _this_ bullshit isn't one of them.

"Nao," he repeats, his voice stern.

"I'm not wearing a dead girl's tunic."

"I went ahead of the slaves to find an escape route, but they won't take much longer. I won't be able to subdue them _and_ help them slip away if they mistake you for a marine." Rayleigh spares a glance at the knocked out blond. "Find spare clothes for him too, and go down to wherever Garp's grandson is. I'll pass you three off as slaves."

Rayleigh vanishes before she can argue against his instructions, leaving her with no option other than to obey.

Nao makes her way over to where her first victim lay dead, holding in her bile as she practically defiles the corpse. No longer running with adrenaline alone, Nao studies the girl through calmer eyes.

She is— _was_ —pretty. Nao entertains the thought that, had the girl not been born of slave, she might've been a real beauty to marvel at, as opposed to the malnourished frame that took away from a delicate face. Porcelain skin and dull eyes that may have once been capable of making hearts skip beats—so serene in death that it's creepy.

Out of respect, Nao slowly closes the girl's eyelids. It's all she can do for her.

There is no time for Nao to feel something as human as remorse.

She begins to pull the raggedy clothes off of the girl, grimacing as she does so. Despite how rare it is for Nao to feel disturbed, something about the idea of adorning her murder victim's clothes made her shiver. She does it as quickly as she can, peeling off her blood-soaked uniform and throwing on the dirtied tunic in its place. Pushing the thought of who the clothes had once belonged to out of her mind, she randomly grabs more rags from another nearby corpse for Rosinante.

Satisfied with the haul that she never wanted in the first place, Nao begins to head towards the ship's hold. It's a pain in the ass to drag the lanky man back into the ship, but Nao finds herself wishing she had taken longer to do it when she finally achieves the feat.

She has to get rid of Rosinante's uniform.

She doesn't want to do it. (Defiling the dead for her own self interest is one matter; sullying Rosinante's good boy image by forcing him to do so while he's unconscious is a whole other level of wrongness.)

But she also doesn't want the future of the world to be _totally_ fucked because of badly timed abashedness. So, reluctantly, she does as ordered, wincing as she uses her injured hand to unbutton Rosinante's tattered clothes.

Only then does she realize how screwed they would've been had Rayleigh not shown up when he did. Both of them are riddled with cuts and scrapes—it's an actual, god-given miracle that they haven't collapsed yet. At a certain point while she's redressing him, she can no longer discern whether the blood pooling beneath them is hers or his.

"Don't die on me now," she coughs out, spitting out more blood. She doesn't know if she's talking to him or herself.

Using any spare pieces of cloth that she can rip from both of their clothes, she clumsily patches him together, dyeing the strips a deep red with the blood oozing out of her hand. They, she decides, are probably more screwed than they've ever been in their lives, but there's not a second she can spare with looking sullen. Once Rosinante is adequately disguised (a pretty easy thing to accomplish when the two are already smeared with soot and blood), Nao awkwardly places him on her back.

They look as awkward as it gets—the image of a young girl carrying a ridiculously leggy man would've been laughable if they hadn't just finished a slaughter. He's too tall to be completely off the ground, and the dragging of his legs creates an eerie squeak.

Finally, she reaches the end of the stupidly lengthy hallway, coming to the shady entrance into the hull. The door is rusted, indicating that few people enter the room. With the knowledge of what it's being used as—a makeshift bedroom for the world's most despised child—it's not hard to see _why_ it's untouched territory.

It's unbelievable, really, how things could go so awry. All she had done was suggest to Rayleigh that she was skilled enough to wander off on her own; he took it upon himself to ask Garp for the favor, and now the whole damned world is screwed. (With the lives of two irrefutably important characters in her hands, she suddenly feels a lot like someone with Parkinson's disease.)

Creating a noise so atrocious it could make a deaf man's ears bleed, Nao is astounded that she receives no greeting when she opens the metal door. She tentatively takes a step in, then two. As light floods into the dark chamber, she finds herself relaxing at the scene that awaits her.

The young boy lays on a cargo crate, sleeping away the day. He appears to be the epitome of aloofness, however unintentional it may be. He's completely unaware of the world that's falling apart around him. Somehow, in a way that defies all logic, Ace had slept through the Armageddon-esque battle that had happened on the deck.

Now he snores softly, not hearing Nao's loud entrance.

Attempting to find a sufficient hiding place, Nao does her damndest to tiptoe around the cramped space. She isn't ready—both physically and emotionally—to deal with Ace just yet. His state of unconsciousness appears to be a blessing. All Nao has to do is wait for more slaves to arrive, and she'd be in the clear—Ace would never notice her presence.

But Fate has a way of having things go the exact opposite way Nao wants them to, and a soft collision—barely one at all, really—creates the quietest of echos in the hull. She finds herself not at all worried. Thus far, Ace has slept through an explosion, gunfire, and a goddamn massacre. Surely such a tiny sound wouldn't be enough to disturb the kid's sleep.

And then the bubble blowing out of his nostril pops.

He bolts awake, rubbing his eyes as they focus in on the bloodied, battered girl standing before him. Scrunching his face together, he frowns as she freezes in place. (Jesus _fuckin_ ' Christ, she hates this damn world.)

"Who're you?"

* * *

 **Woohoo another update! Sooo guys, summer classes start tomorroe for me, and I'm going to be super busy. I _will_ continue to update this fanfic, but the updates would come once a week rather than the five or so days I've been usually doing. Not a change that's too drastic, but I hope you guys can understand. :)**

 **Anyways, did you guys enjoy the chapter? Honestly, I've felt like I've somewhat lost your attention recently. If there's anything at all you want to say about the fanfic, please feel free to do so with a review!**

 **As always, have great day!~**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

With a bloodied man on her shoulders and just as many not-so-innocuous stains on her own clothing, there's not much Nao can do to find a way out of this mess. At the current moment, she's the furthest thing away from being inconspicuous—something she needs to be if she wants things to not _completely_ be fucked in the universe.

Ace stares at her with dead-fish eyes, looking as bored as a middle school student attending detention. He seems blissfully unaware of the Armageddon occurring outside of the ship walls—the first good thing to happen to Nao in _years_.

This, she can work with. This, she _has_ to work with. (But with the shit this world likes to pull on her, there's no telling whether or not _it_ will work with _her_.)

"I said," he starts, pausing to dig a dirty finger deeper into one of his flared nostrils, "who're you?"

She figures honesty—though it may be a _vague_ brand of it—is the best policy. "I'm Nao."

"Why're ya on Gramps' ship?"

A million thoughts and possible scenarios race through her mind. If she's truthful with the kid, she risks introducing herself into the brat's life far too soon. If she isn't honest and she runs into him again later down the line—an inevitable event considering _her_ luck—then she's jeopardizing being able to stay on his good side. Didn't heroic characters glorify the truth above all things? Honor and whatnot?

Luckily, Rosinante has regained enough consciousness to notice the conundrum that had forced her into a suspicious silence.

"Ace-san, I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm with your grandpa," Rosinante speaks in between wet coughs, praying to God, Kami, Buddha, and any damned deity that he can think of to make it so that, for once, Ace had been aware enough to recognize his face. "I came with him to pick you up a couple weeks ago."

"Oh. Yer one of the marines." If it's even possible, Ace looks even more bored. Jutting his chin out and looking away, he elaborates on his apparent distaste for the ragtag pair. "I already told Gramps. I'm not gonna be a marine, I'm gonna be a pirate! Whatever ya say isn't gonna change my mind."

Rosinante, between his fits of coughs, musters a smile. "Don't tell Garp I said this, but I'm sure you'll be a great pirate. Before that, though, could you help us out?"

Ace looks at the pair dubiously, but Rosinante's compliment serves to make him a little more receptive to their request. "What'dya mean by help?"

"Can you help us hide until your grandpa comes back?" Nao butts in. She can't risk Rosinante giving away too much information to a kid who should've never been in the area in the first place. The more ignorant she can make Ace to the events in the world around him, the better.

Ace crosses his arms, defiantly looking up to avoid eye contact with them. "Pirates don't help marines."

Before Rosinante can inform the kid about the direness of the situation transpiring outside of the boat, Nao pipes up again. "Pirates don't help marines, but they do help friends. If you want to be a good pirate, you better start on that now."

Ace looks anything but ready to give them aid. "Who said we're friends?"

If the kid wasn't so goddamn important to the Universe, Nao would've smacked some sense into him by now. This just _wasn't_ the time for him to give her attitude. Luckily, Rosinante is a lot better of a person than her.

"We can be friends starting now, Ace," Rosinante offers, still beaming at the stubborn brat.

He doesn't budge. "Sabo's the only friend I need."

When Nao's just about ready to knock him out and go about her day, he speaks up again. " _But_ I _do_ need people to join my crew. You're strong, aren't ya? That's why yer all covered in blood."

Nao blanches. This isn't exactly the time or place to start spewing false promises to one of the few kids insane enough to force her to keep them, but surviving is what she prioritizes above all. "I can't guarantee that, Ace, but I'll make you a deal. When you become a great pirate, I'll become strong enough to help you if you ever get yourself into a mess you can't fix. Deal?"

"I dunno… Once I'm a pirate, I'll be stronger than ya, and I won't need yer help…" Just when Nao thinks there's no hope of him coming around, he continues to talk. "But I guess it can't hurt to have some backup. Deal! What'dya need help with?"

From where she had dragged Rosinante and herself in, the sound of at _least_ a few dozen footsteps is heard. Nao swears her heart's one more adrenaline rush away from bursting. She feels slight pressure on her shoulders, and one glance at what it is sends her reeling.

Rosinante has lost consciousness again—her one friend in what's soon to be a sea of potential foes.

"Great!" Her voice is a few pitches higher than usual. "Let's start with pretending that we're all just slaves. Can you do that, Ace?"

Ace nods enthusiastically. "You betcha!"

As he agrees, the first few runaway slaves step into the hull, looking just as rabid and frantic as the ones Nao had cut down no more than half an hour before. Knowing full well how dangerous a cornered person could be, Nao grabs Ace by the wrist and pulls him behind her, all three of them now backing up against the various cargo boxes around them.

When the sound of Rosinante's back hitting the wooden crates echos through the room, all eyes are on them.

A dauntingly pretty girl steps in front of the steadily amassing crowd, holding them back and checking out the trio. Black hair cascades down her back, and her eyes hold a depth that draw in anyone who dares to look into them. Though she is young, there's no mistaking the making of a future beauty to behold.

Nao feels her mouth go dry.

Boa Hancock and, cowering behind her, her sisters.

The irony doesn't escape Nao. Behind her is the boy who'd one day be on an execution stand, and in front of her is the girl who'd one day be forced to play a part in his death—both of them merely being pushed along by the world government whose very base is where they're currently standing. (If the universe could self-destruct, Nao would bet both her lives on this jumble of horrible run-ins being when it'd happen.)

Delicate lips part to spit out ugly words unbefitting of such a pretty child. "Who are you? If you're one of the marines, I'll kill you right where you stand!"

Regardless of how parched she suddenly feels, now isn't the time for her voice to fail her. "We're escaped slaves! We boarded this ship in hopes of being able to escape, but we're all too injured or too weak to sail the ship." To prove her point, she forces herself to cough up a glob of congealed blood.

Gazing over the various injuries and rags for clothes, Hancock seems to buy the ruse. She turns around to address the people accompanying her. "This ship is empty—the marines have probably all gone to land to help the rioting there. Everyone, find a place to hide. Rayleigh-san will help us escape through this ship."

Her voice rings loud and clear, and the crowd disperses to follow her order. She is, without a doubt, the girl who'd soon become the formidable captain of the Kuja Pirates—a woman Nao has no intentions of pissing off. She stands tall, even in the midst of what could very well be considered a war, and in her hands is a box that Nao figures would best be kept shut. Whatever the teen commands for them to do, Nao has every intention of doing it.

This resolve (as nearly everything in this damn world fuckin' does) comes back to bite her in the ass.

"Here." The box Nao had decided that she wanted nothing to do with is tossed into her hands. "One of you, take this. We need all the firepower we can get, and based on how much blood is on your clothes, I'm assuming you've already been in a fight to have even gotten this far."

Nao's heart sinks as she starts to get an idea of just what her trembling hands are holding. Praying that it isn't what she thinks it is, she looks up at Hancock. "What is it?"

Hancock's bottom lip quivers as she explains. "I took it from the house I served in."

She stares at Nao expectantly, and, with dread, Nao complies. With hands shaking in fear of what's in the box rather than fear of the bloody mess that's going on outside, Nao opens the container slowly.

A devil fruit.

"You want one of us to eat this?" Nao asks, knowing that she's only buying time at this point.

"It won't harm you. It'll only help if we get into another fight on the way out of Mariejois."

As Hancock describes the obvious reason as to why someone needs to eat the fruit, Nao weighs her limited options. Rosinante is out of the question; even if he _was_ conscious, his body couldn't handle consuming _another_ devil fruit. Ace was even less of a possible choice than the clumsy blond; there was no telling the screwed the world would be if Fire Fist Ace was never able to eat the Mera Mera no Mi.

"Oi, I'll eat it!" Ace offers himself up, and Nao hurriedly moves the fruit out of his grasp.

Wanting to halt his protest before it can start, Nao uses the simplest excuse she can think of. "You won't be able to become a pirate if you eat this."

Ace clearly doesn't like it, but the idea of being unable to pursue his dream quiets him. All Nao can hope for is for him to decide the risk is worth it when he stumbles upon the Mera Mera no Mi later in life.

As of now, though, there's no one else _but_ Nao who can eat the damned thing.

"Are you sure no one else who you came with can eat this?" Nao asks, an octave away from being able to break glass.

"Most of us have already had one force fed to us, or are too weak to use whatever it does." A faint blush touches Hancock's cheeks—so light it could be mistaken as an image falsified by the dim lighting in the hull. "Plus, based on how much blood you've lost, if it's something that could help you heal, then you should have it."

The fact that she's giving it to the trio out of the kindness of her heart makes the idea of simply refusing all the more unfeasible. If she has to do this—if Nao really has to damn herself to the oddities of this world—she'll do it fast. Before her want to live a somewhat normal life can hinder her any further, Nao grabs the fruit and stuffs it in her mouth in one smooth motion.

Long before the bitterness and downright awfulness can register in her mind, the mushed fruit has already slid its way down her throat.

She resists the urge to puke, wiping away the spit from the corner of her mouth. "T-Thank you."

Nothing feels all that different, and for a moment she sees a small sliver of hope—perhaps the fruit had been a dud.

Then she looks up at Hancock. Had the girl always been so close?

"Wha—" Hancock's startled cry is cut short as Nao falls onto her, bringing with her both Ace _and_ Rosinante.

Before anyone can even begin to comprehend why they'd suddenly found themselves in a pile with the soon-to-be empress of Amazon Lily, Nao looks back at the corner she had just been cowering in. As her eyes focus on the sight, the three are back in the corner in a flash.

She can't help the vulgar words that slip out of her mouth. "What the _fuck_?"

"Teleporting, huh?" Hancock pushes herself off of the floor, heaving a heavy sigh as she brushes off the dirt and grime. "It's not really combative in the slightest, but at least it does something _sort of_ useful."

Nao's body feels extra heavy, and whether it's from exhaustion due to her using the devil fruit, or out of her finally succumbing to effects of the blood loss from her hand injury, she doesn't know.

As her vision fades, all she knows is that she and—out of association—the world, just got a lot more screwed.

* * *

 **And Nao has eaten a devil fruit! How do you guys feel about her new ability? Trust me when I say it isn't something quite as simple as just teleporting. :)**

 **I had so much fun writing sassy little Ace lol.**

 **Did you guys enjoy the chapter? I'd appreciate the heck out of a review if you guys have the time to leave one. Thanks for reading!**

 **As always, have a great day!~**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

An icy hand grabs hold of Nao's shoulder, jolting her awake. She blinks sporadically, her flitting eyes similar to those of a scared, cornered animal. (What kind of _fuckery_ did she get into _this_ time?)

When she finally comes to her senses, a speedy movement on her part grants her a hold of her potential assaulter's wrist. Once she's decided that her grip is firm enough, she yanks the violator downwards. Her only intention is to startle them—to halt whatever the hell it is that they're trying to do to her.

A startled cry escapes the lips of a man with a familiar mop of unruly, blond hair.

"What the hell are you doing?" Nao snaps, regaining her composure as she fully wakes up.

Rosinante lays face down on the ground—the unfortunate result of his clumsiness mixed together with Nao's impulsive aggressiveness. He waves his hand, motioning for her to give him a second or two, before he picks himself up off of the floor. As he steadies himself while getting back onto his own two feet, Nao takes it as a chance to reexamine their surroundings.

Judging based on what little is shown from the light streaming through the cracks in the shut door, it's quite obvious that they're still in the ship's hold. The light comes from the fluorescent ones in the hallway, but sunlight is nowhere to be seen. Whether it's evening or the early morning, it doesn't matter. All that matters is the fact that time has _passed_ —a fact that serves more to alarm than to comfort the already freaked-out Nao. Is she still in Mariejois? Has she condemned herself and Rosinante to a guaranteed death by staying on the ship? (If Rosinante dies here, is the entire goddamn universe _fucked_?)

"You've been out for a few hours—not long," Rosinante informs, coughing as he speaks.

Nao nods along as he talks, barely listening to his words. The thoughts about Rosinante's role in the world sends her into a whole other downward spiral of panic as her thoughts shift to the _other_ vital character on the godforsaken ship.

 _Ace_.

"Where's Ace?"

For half of a second, Rosinante looks confused, until his face, too, contorts to reveal horror. "Crap."

"What do you _mean 'crap'_?" Nao asks, nearly hysterical as her voice rises in pitch. There's no way someone—even a person as accident-prone and clumsy as Rosinante—could just _lose_ the one kid that half the world wants to murder, right?

"I think he slipped away while we were all checking up on you." He scratches the back his head sheepishly.

Wrong.

Every bit of her wants her to completely lose it on Rosinante. This day has just been—even for someone as well versed in all things screwed up as her— _too_ _much_. From learning that she might've fucked the world over to a point where even _she_ is fucked, to participating in a massacre; did Fate have any intentions of going _easy_ on her for once?

But regardless of how frustrated she is, she refrains from taking it out on the man. If it's possible, he looks even more beaten and battered than her. Though his wounds were no longer profusely bleeding, the fresh bloodstains on his clothing make it evident that he's everything _but_ okay. He's roughly bandaged—a job done well enough to prevent him from bleeding out, but done sloppily enough to show that he's far from being in tiptop condition.

She feels a sense of restlessness, and she briefly fears that she'll accidentally teleport herself right into a watery grave outside of the ship, but eventually, as she lets herself relax, the feeling passed.

Nao puts in a real effort to bury her fury, taking a deep breath before she addresses Rosinante again. "Do you at least know if he's still on the boat?"

Rosinante shrugs. "Probably? I don't see any reason for him to not be."

Nao is baffled—how could the man be so nonchalant when the goddamn _grandson_ of his boss is _missing_. If anything, he should've been even _more_ frantic than she was. All qualms against going off on the endearingly graceless man are thrown out the window.

"How are you so fucking calm—"

Her indignant cry is cut short by the creaking of the opening door. As her mind registers what she sees in the doorway, her question about Rosinante's unnerving composite is answered.

Standing there, looking more chipper than she'd ever seen him, is Rayleigh. He grins at the awakened girl, and the presence of the little boy holding the usually easygoing man's hand tells her all she needs to know about why he's so ecstatic.

 _Ah, it's Roger's kid_.

As far as she knew, Rayleigh had never met Ace before his death—though whether it was out of some illogical fear of history repeating itself, or simply a dislike for dwelling on the past, she still doesn't quite know. Now that he _is_ meeting Ace, though, happiness is an understatement of what his expression betrays. (For a moment, Nao thinks the look on his face is almost _worth_ the bullshit she's been dragged through as of late.)

"Rayleigh." Nao nods her head in his direction to greet him.

He looks almost—dare she say it—embarrassed as he nods back at her. As he does so, Ace lets go of Rayleigh's hand to make a run for it to Nao.

Unable to do much else other than endure it—she figures punting the brat off the boat isn't a viable option—she lets herself get mowed down by the speedy kid. She grunts as she hits the ground, but what takes her by surprise isn't the impact—it's the disgustingly cute scowl on Ace's face.

"What the hell's wrong with you and yer friends?" Ace asks, though his accusatory tone makes it seem more of an undebatable statement than a question.

Nao gives him an incredulous stare. She can't have been awake for more than a few minutes, and already she's being accused of some kind of foolery that she's certain she didn't do. "What do you mean?"

Ace huffs, crossing his arms defensively as he gets back up. "Yer all refusin' to join my crew."

Rayleigh reacts with a closed-eye laugh—something he often did throughout his years with Nao whenever he wanted her to handle whatever mess they'd gotten into at the time. Internally, she groans; externally, she adorns an apologetic smile.

"Ace," she shoots a not-so-innocent grin in Rayleigh's direction, "that old man was already _a part_ a pirate crew. You don't want your crew to be filled with grandmas and grandpas, do you?" There's irony in her advising a kid who'd end up on one of the oldest crews still existing yo not to recruit a bunch of old men and women.

He looks away. "But yer still strong."

Nao struggles to find a proper response, and Rayleigh finally decides to help her out with defusing the mess. Somewhere along the line during those years they'd spent together, it had become apparent to Rayleigh that whenever Nao was insistent on anything, it meant more than just a biased standpoint on her part. If she was _avoiding_ something, it probably had to do with—what he knew as—her visions.

Walking over to them, Rayleigh ruffles Ace's hair affectionately, though the boy will most likely never know why he's so well liked by the man. Rayleigh crouches down to be at eye level with him. "You're gonna find a good crew once you're older, so don't rush into it right now. Who's to say you won't need people even stronger than us?"

Nao resists the urge to snort. Rayleigh knows damn well that he's one of _the_ most powerful men out there, but bullshitting every once in awhile can't hurt if it's meant to get them out of a mess. Behind her, Rosinante makes a strangled noise that could be interpreted as somewhat of a laugh. He, too, knew just how ridiculous Rayleigh's understatement of himself is.

But still, Ace remains hardheaded. "I don't care if my crew's super strong. I just wanna have friends on my ship."

"Oh, so we're friends now, are we?" Nao quirks an eyebrow, referring to his previous excuse for not aiding them.

A hand comes down and smacks her forehead. "You're not allowed to tease kids when you're a kid yourself."

Nao gives Rosinante a half-hearted glare. "So you're gonna join his crew then, Rosinante?"

Ace hears the question and delivers a killing blow in the form of a hopeful grin. Seeing it, Rosinante blushes and stammers a nervous refusal. "I-I don't think that's gonna work out, Ace."

Before Ace can guilt trip all three of them into becoming a part of his future pirate crew, Rayleigh steps in. "Hey, Ace. Could you do me a favor and go find Hancock-san? The lady who spoke to you all earlier? She should be on the deck."

Ace doesn't look at all eager to comply, but the expectant looks from all three of what he thinks is his future shipmates convinces him to go along with the request anyways. "Okay, but then _you_ owe me a favor, too."

Once he leaves, Nao audibly groans. "Great, Rayleigh. You've gone and gotten us indebted to a brat that's crazier than you."

"It he's anything like his father, we might be in for some trouble when he comes back to collect his favor," Rayleigh laughs, but doesn't deny the claim about his lack of sanity. "With that being said though, I still have never been reckless enough to eat a devil fruit on a whim."

"On a _whim_? It was either me, this half-dead guy behind me, or a kid who'd go and accidentally destroy the entire world if he ate it. I'd like to think the option I chose was rather logical."

"Logical for _your_ line of thinking, yes, but logical in general…?" he trails off, suggesting that she'd opted for an option just as idiotic as the rest seemed to be. "I won't argue, but you _do_ realize you could've simply lied and said that you've already consumed one, right? Anyways, which one did you eat?"

She flushes, embarrassed about her lack of reason in the moment, but ignores all but his last question. "Not sure. Some sort of teleporting ability, I think?"

Before Rayleigh can comment any further, Rosinante interrupts with a frown. "Teleportation? We had a book on devil fruits in Garp-san's office, but I don't recall ever reading that one."

"In Garp's office? Was that not the room that went up in flames?" Rayleigh asks, referring to the explosion that had occurred during the first wave of attacks.

"Ah, it was, but there's other copies back at headquarters."

"Would you mind helping Nao figure out what kind of disaster she's signed up for this time?"

"No, I don't mind at—" Rosinante freezes as he realizes he's talking a little too familiarly to a man who should be his greatest enemy. "Of course I mind! What on earth are you on this ship for? Why am I this kid's new babysitter?"

"'Cause you marines are the people who burned down my old home?" Nao chirps.

"Because she's now in Garp's care?" Rayleigh suggests.

Both are enough to make Rosinante sing a different tune.

"I won't be returning to base once we leave Mariejois but… I _do_ have someone that owes _me_ a favor…" Rosinante offers, looking genuinely remorseful for not being able to help Nao himself.

She isn't complaining, though. She'd much rather have him be where the universe wants him to be instead of helping her deal with a mistake that was her own fault to begin with. "Who owes you a favor?"

"Kuzan-san."

Scratch that. She'd take Rosinante over the ice-cold, future-admiral any day of the week.

"Does the entire marines just revolve around its members owing people nonsensical favors?" Rayleigh asks the question that Nao's been wondering since the first few years of her life, but before Rosinante can refute the claim, the door opens up once more.

"I brought her. Can ya join my crew now?" Ace demands, strutting into the room with a confused Hancock behind him.

"Rayleigh-san…?"

"Great job, Ace. I can't join your crew, but I'm sure you'll become a great pirate with or without these other troublemakers on board with you." Rayleigh shoots down Ace's request without hesitation, and a new sense of urgency enters his tone. "Hancock-san, are all the boats ready?"

Nao's eyes flick back and forth between Rayleigh and Hancock, but before she can voice her confusion, the ship is rocked by an unidentifiable blow.

Rosinante grabs onto her and Ace, making sure that they don't further injure themselves due to the violently shaking boat. Rayleigh, however, looks unfazed—as if he had _expected_ the attack to come.

"T-The boats are ready," Hancock confirms, looking just as bemused as the trio is.

"Hancock-san, take all the escaped slaves and have them escape on the available life rafts. I'll come with you to help you and and your injured sisters out." He looks Nao dead in the eye as he speaks again. "You three are _too injured_ to be moved."

She understands the hidden meaning behind his words— _stay here to go back with the marines_.

Ace tries to argue back, but is met with a soft blow to the back of his neck to prevent him from causing too much of a scene—courtesy of Rosinante. Rayleigh looks grateful for the younger man's actions, probably not wanting to place his hands on his former captain's kid, even if it _is_ for a good reason.

The two men share a look—perhaps one of mutual understanding—before Rayleigh leaves with a still-bewildered Hancock, not sparing any of them another glance.

"That guy's really going the extra mile to stop this ship from leaving, huh?" Rosinante barks a fake laugh, looking _annoyed_ more than anything at the attacked ship. "What an asshole."

For the life of her, Nao can't figure out why he's _still_ so relaxed, or who the hell the 'asshole' in question is, but she's never given the chance to voice her confusion.

The world freezes over before her eyes.

* * *

 **Woohoo! Nao's gonna find out what her devil fruit ability** _ **really**_ **is soon, and Kuzan's entering the mix! I had so much fun writing the interactions between Ace and Rayleigh. I'd like to imagine that Rayleigh always kept tabs on Ace in canon, and that he secretly enjoyed rooting for his former captain's kid.**

 **Did you enjoy the chapter? Please leave a review! It helps a TON with motivating me to update faster and with longer chapters. Can we reach 100 reviews with this chapter? :D**

 **Have a great day! ~**


	17. Chapter 17

**Thank you for 100 reviews!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

"Y-You couldn't h-have gone a b-bit easier on our sh-ship?" Rosinante spits out through clenched teeth, overwhelmed by violent shivers as he glares at his comrade.

"I just thought your clumsiness would have carried you overboard by now," Kuzan justifies, not looking the least bit apologetic for turning their mode of transportation into a popsicle. "Hurry up and unfreeze yourself so you can start thawing those two kids."

Rosinante doesn't stop his one-sided staring contest with the easygoing man, but nonetheless complies, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

They've been dragged to the bathroom of the ship, with the majority of the room's occupants tinted an off _blue_ color—a feat courtesy of the ever so overpowered, ice-cold Vice Admiral. Despite the obvious damage done to what is essentially their _home_ on the seas, though, Kuzan seems more _amused_ than anything at the trio's suffering.

"W-What an a-asshole," Nao snaps as soon as Rosinante successfully thaws out her face. She knows full well, though, that if Kuzan had _really_ wanted the three of them to perish, they would've been frozen solid by now. This, she decides, is probably his skewed idea of a practical _joke_ to play on the clumsy blond, and she and Ace just so happen to have been caught in the middle of it.

But in spite of just how shitty the situation appears to be overall, Nao spares him a pained grin.

"How about we say you owe me a favor and call it even?"

Kuzan crosses his arms, looking anything but ready to agree to wholly submit to whatever future whim the devil-in-disguise could have. "How about I freeze you again and turn you into a makeshift _buoy_ instead?"

"I'm not the one who froze my boss' kid."

"Boss?" Kuzan raises an eyebrow. "Garp and I have the exact same rank."

Nao rolls her eyes, though her stiffened movements after the unwanted ice bath make it seem like more of an awkward twitch. "How many times has Garp rejected a promotion? Three? Four? He's _pretty much_ your superior."

"Pretty much isn't good enough," Kuzan speaks flatly, yet still distracting her with conversation in his own way.

Nao hisses as Rosinante begins working on her arms, the hot water having created a burning sensation on her frozen limbs. It's excruciating—absolutely _awful_ , in fact—but her pride causes her to refrain from making too much of a scene. To her left, Ace is being defrosted by the very same man who had turned the ship into a glacier in the first place, and he's taking it like a champ.

Nao would be damned if she let a _kid_ best her in a battle of wills.

Regardless of the sharp pangs of pain shooting through her arms, though, Nao isn't impaired enough to _not_ note the irony of it all. Here Ace is, essentially being rescued by the man who'd fight tooth and nail to have him executed in a little more than a decade. (It's a fuckin' Greek tragedy, really.)

"You're _d-definitely_ making up for this by doing _all_ the paperwork that G-Garp was trying to have _me_ do," she demands.

"And m-mine," Rosinante adds.

"A-nd m-in-e," Ace joins in, choosing to stretch his words out rather than stutter in a childish attempt to mask how much Kuzan's devil fruit power had destroyed them all.

Kuzan stops in his thawing process to give Ace his own fist of love. "Don't repeat things just because you feel like it, kid."

There's a common misconception about Ace, one that Nao had once had herself. He is, in fact, _not_ as much of an idiot as those around him would rightfully think, and it's in moments like these—moments where Ace just can't stop his sharp tongue from slicing their egos in half—that that becomes apparent. "Gramps is gunna give ya _all_ the paperwork now."

"Why? Because I _froze_ you?" Kuzan looks unperturbed at the threat. "Your _gramps_ is the guy who enjoys putting you through hell the most."

But Ace, too, doesn't look the least bit fazed at Kuzan's rebuttal. "Maybe, but if I tell 'im that I'll _think_ about bein' one of ya marine bastards, he'll do what I want."

Prior to this encounter, Nao probably would've never though Kuzan's expression could _ever_ get so panicked. (Just what in the hell did Garp's favors and paperwork entail?)

"... What do you want, kid?"

Nao blinks, not believing what she's hearing. (Is _the_ motherfuckin' future-Admiral of the marines, baddy-baddy, I'm-ruthless-and-I freeze-all _Kuzan_ _really_ trying to negotiate with _Ace_ , the former Pirate King's _son_? The very same son who he'd eventually help _kill_?)

Ace's expression grows smug. He has—unfortunately—learned the way of the marines. "I want my own favor."

There's a near unexplainable weight in those words—what a favor _really_ means to those at sea.

The sea is a vast place—a place where one misstep can guarantee death. In a world so harsh, there must be an unspoken law, of sorts—a code of honor, as one might call it. Even if killing to survive is a norm, there are lines that must not be crossed, and the line of dishonesty is certainly one of them.

Both pirates and marines alike understand this law, and both pirates and marines wouldn't dare to go back on something they've sworn to do. To owe a favor is nearly to owe everything except perhaps one's _life_ to someone, and when the time comes to collect that favor, an honorable man will not disappoint.

Ace is asking for a helluva lot more than just a small, simple 'favor'.

And Kuzan, surprisingly accepts. "Okay, kid."

All three of Kuzan's victims of harassment chorus a word of surprise. " _Really_?"

"I'd sooner be demoted to a _cabin boy_ again before being caught filling out paperwork in place of _Garp_ ," Kuzan elaborates on his shocking answer, looking more surprised at their reactions that they had been at his acceptance of the deal.

"Well, you better start finding an old sailor's uniform then, Kuzan."

All four of the bathroom's occupants whip their heads towards the entrance into the room. Despite two of them being powerful marines in their own right, one kid being the' battered, life-hardened, _Pirate King's son_ , and the other one really being a twenty-something year old trapped in a kid's body, all of them look just as guilty as mere children caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

"G-Garp-san!" Rosinante greets warmly, though the stutter gives away how nervous he actually is to see his superior on board the ship in the midst of an absolute shitshow.

"Yo," Nao grunts, raising her hand near her face, half in an attempt to say hello to the vice admiral, and half to obscure the shit-eating grin on her face. Watching the two grown men squirm under Garp's patronizing stare is just _too_ amusing.

"You _brats_ ," Garp starts, beginning to reprimand them regardless of the fact that two-and-a-half of them are literal, full grown adults. "What the hell did you _do,_ Kuzan?"

Kuzan lazily waves his hands as if the man regarded as one of _the_ most powerful marines still active wasn't a few words away from letting him experience the second worst ass-whooping of his current life. (The first, of course, would be Akainu's, but no one—aside from the all-knowing brat smirking in the corner—knows about _that_ one yet.)

Rosinante grabs Nao and Ace, tugging them out of Garp's probable path of destruction.

"Look," Kuzan points at the freckled boy "he's barely even frozen anymore. Just toss him into the sea for a few minutes and he'll be fine."

They were all assuming that Garp's fury was incited by the sight of popsicle-Ace.

They were also all assuming wrong.

Garp puts on his famed lecturing expression, hands rested on his hips as he leans forward to, scold his messy subordinates. At least, that was what the stance had first seemed to be.

Then he speaks.

"That was a good exercise for Ace to train his resistance to devil fruits, _but_ ," he pauses for a dramatic flair, " _did you have to take my ship down in the process_?"

It's then that everyone realizes that they aren't the _only_ things that look a bit blue-hued. The walls, the ceiling—even the goddamned _condensation_ on the windows—have all been frozen solid. (Completely. Fuckin. Solid.)

Kuzan chuckles sheepishly.

Once again, he's on the receiving ends of everyone's accusatory glares. Even Ace—the sole person involved that seems somewhat uncaring of the situation—is shooting daggers at him out of some kind of odd sense of peer pressure.

"I'm the one who gets money deducted out of my _payroll_ for this shit, Kuzan," Garp exclaims, looking absolutely horrified at the amount he'd probably owe Sengoku once this is a done deal. "You're filing the paperwork for the rest of this month—no, this _year_."

"But—"

"Face it, Kuzan. You've been busted," Rosinante snickers, only to have his joy at his comrade's well-deserved suffering be shattered by none other than Garp himself.

"And _you_ ," Garp snaps, pointing a finger at the now-terrified blond, "need to tell me how on _earth_ my office is charred _and_ frozen."

"Well, sir, there was an explosion, then we all were rushed by the escaped slaves, more shit blew up, and eventually Aokiji-san showed up to to screw us _all_ over even more. I wouldn't even be surprised if the explosions were caused by his icicles impaling something flammable on the ship," Nao answers for Rosinante, feeling bad for the poor guy who always seems to be getting the short end of the stick.

Rosinante throws her a thankful look, and she moves in a vague way that looks somewhat like her eating a fruit in order to remind him of why they _really_ need Kuzan.

It's not hard to deduce from his pained expression that Rosinante doesn't want to be asking his sort-of friend for _any_ favors right now, but he, being the self sacrificial guy that he is, does it anyways.

"Yes, that's precisely what happened." He clears his throat while Kuzan looks just about ready to curse both him and Nao to the grave for throwing him and only him under the bus. Despite being in a place so cold that it could be mistaken for the North Pole, he's sweating buckets as he starts to make an excuse to leave. "I-I do believe that I should probably make my leave now. Sengoku-san expected me to have already infiltrated into the Donquixote Pirates' crew by now."

He starts a casual saunter towards the exit, choosing to throw in his request of Kuzan once he's a safe distance away. "Nao ate a devil fruit by the way. I think Kuzan could help with that instead of the paperwork if he wants to do me a _favor_."

They all know damn well that his mention of the word favor makes it more of an unofficial mandatory mission than anything.

Garp crosses his arms to show his dislike of him already losing his new cabin boy to Rosinante's strange demand, but he doesn't say anything to go against his subordinate's word. He would never be caught intruding between a promise held among two men of their caliber. "Call in if you need any help, Rosi."

"Will do," Rosinante's voice echos back so softly it barely registers in Nao's mind—though she can't tell if her lack of comprehension is from shock or simply because he's too far away to be heard now. She _does,_ however, hear the unmistakable sound of the klutz tripping on his way out.

She can't even understand what just happened.

Rosinante just _left_ their boat in the middle of a goddamned _war_ —although Garp's reappearance makes it quite clear that the main battle has ended—and now she's being thrown to the sharks by being the unwanted pupil of _Aokiji_? _The_ Aokiji? The wolfish man who singlehandedly changed half a fuckin' island's _climate_? _That_ Aokiji?

Everyone in the room is baffled at Rosinante's brazen words.

Or at least— _nearly_ everyone, that is.

Ace picks his nose.

"So when're ya takin' me back to Dadan, Gramps?"

* * *

 **Y'all I have laughed** ** _so_** **hard while imagining the dynamics between Garp, Aokiji, Rosinante, and Sengoku. They're just a huge, powerful mess!**

 **Guys! We reached a 100 reviews** ** _and_** **this is marks over 10 chapters that I've written since my return! Thank you so much for sticking it out with me over the past year or so, and thank you for dealing with my prolonged absences! Next chapter, Sengoku will make an appearance!**

 **Did you enjoy the chapter? Please leave a review if you did, regardless of whether or not you feel your words are repetitive. I appreciate y'all so much.**

 **Have a good day!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

Nao is blushing.

Nao is blushing really, _really_ fuckin' hard.

Nao is blushing really, _really_ fuckin' hard because she—being the internally twenty-something (or is it thirty-something by now?) year-old woman that she is—is currently draped over Kuzan's shoulder, awkwardly hanging off of him like a ragdoll. The only thing that brings _some_ sense of comfort to her is the fact that Ace is in the same predicament, though the shoulder that he's slung over is Garp's.

"Can you put me down?" Nao asks, face burning despite the freezing temperatures around them. "I can walk with my own two legs."

"You're too slow," Kuzan grunts, using her small size in comparison to his and Garp's towering heights to deny her request.

She gives him a flat stare, though he would never be able to see it unless he suddenly sprouted eyes in the back of his head—a rather ironic thing to think when Robin, the girl whose life he always seems to be dragged into, is thought of. Her incredulous look is absolutely justified, though—she knows better than anyone (except for perhaps, Garp and Rosinante) about the future-Admiral's love of taking his time going places.

To be fair, though—and she admits this begrudgingly—she _is_ somewhat grateful for the free ride, though their entire need to make a lengthy trek across a glacier is due to her ride anyways.

With the threat of Sengoku's lecturing motivating them, Garp had decided to move out towards Marineford _before_ they'd be subjected to his endless chastising.

And so, in attempt to reach the fleet admiral before the news of the frozen ship in Mariejois did, the four of them began a march towards the base. Kuzan had, after all, nearly frozen the surrounding seas near Mariejois anyways—creating a makeshift path to the nearby island would be no biggie.

Nao feels herself growing lightheaded from the awkward way she's hanging off of his shoulder. She really, _really_ does not want to ask him for a readjustment, but her want for a _little_ comfort trumps her pride. "Can you at least let me sit on _both_ of your shoulders instead of carrying me like a rucksack?"

He doesn't reply in anyway to indicate that he's okay with the request. Instead, he moves her without warning, nearly throwing her off of him in the process. After several startled shrieks and a new small welt appearing on his head, Nao finally finds herself in a somewhat comfortable position to laze around while the Vice-Admiral did all of the walking.

Beside her, Ace remains in the awkward pose that he had been in moments before, only now he somehow is idly sleeping.

She shakes her head, though she isn't quite sure whether the movement of incredulity is at Ace's unstoppable narcolepsy or at herself.

But this is a rare moment of peace that she can take advantage of to recoup.

Starting an impromptu, lengthy hike to the marine base gives her the time to really _think_ about her situation for the first time in awhile. She rests her chin on top of Kuzan's head, drawing out an annoyed grunt from the man, but he allows her to ponder in peace.

In ways unbeknownst to her, she's been kicked out from under Rayleigh's care, thrown to the marines, has gotten herself involved in what was basically a _war_ at Mariejois, has killed who _knows_ how many people, and now she sits languidly on the shoulders of a man who could _probably_ destroy an entire island on a whim. Calling her predicament preposterous would be an _understatement_ —the mess she's dragged herself into this time around is destructive enough to be compared to a damn Greek tragedy.

She nearly splits her face in half with the grin that makes its way onto her face. For years she had dreaded the day she'd have to create her own entrance into the grande world—it was just too _vast_ to even _think_ about without feeling overwhelmed—but now that worry seems nonsensical.

Without even trying, she had somehow placed herself right in the midst of nearly everything that mattered in the timeline. (For once, she thinks that maybe Fate has decided to place a bet on the underdog in this shitshow.)

And like this, the hours pass by relatively quickly. Ace continues to doze away the journey, Kuzan continues to carry her without her having much of a say in the matter, Garp continues to walk on without much noise, simply sparing Kuzan an accusatory glare every once in awhile, and Nao continues to think about the mess that's accumulated near those that get close to her, all with a cheeky grin on her face.

Before she knows it, the four of them stand at the outskirts of Marineford. Unsurprisingly, someone is already waiting at the main entrance of the island—probably having been alerted by the random sheet of ice that had coated a good half mile of the waters surrounding the base.

Nao throws Ace a nervous glance. She knows it's nonsensical to be worried about something so far off in the future, but there's just something that doesn't sit right with her about bringing a kid to the place where he'd eventually be held for execution. Thankfully, though, the kid looks somewhat like Garp—a blessing in disguise that'd allow him to remain at Marineford without an entire fleet trying to send him to his death.

"So what are you gonna say to Sengoku?" Garp asks, looking expectantly at the uncharacteristically agitated Vice Admiral.

"That's precisely what I was going to ask you, Garp."

The two have a stare off, and Nao swears they're having a countdown in their head to set off a race to Sengoku to see who could tell their side of the story first. It's incredible, really, to see two _terrifyingly_ powerful men act more childish than she has ever been in both this life _and_ the last.

But before they can make a complete fool out of themselves, an exaggerated yawn stops both of them in their tracks.

"What're ya arguing 'bout? If yer gonna see who's gonna fight the Fleet Admiral guy, then just let me do it," Ace volunteers.

Amazingly enough, the two men _actually consider_ Ace's offer.

"Sengoku can't put _both_ of us on cleaning duties if your kid tells him what happened, right?" Kuzan asks, eyeing Ace with more relief than Nao has ever seen in her life.

Are they _really_ about to use a kid as an out for their reckless behavior?

"Sure," Garp agrees, "but only if that kid on your shoulders can do the whole waterworks show and talk about how the ship just _had_ to be frozen for us to rescue the brat."

Nao opens her mouth to kill their devious idea, but a young marine beats her to it.

"Vice Admiral Garp-san, Vice Admiral Aokiji-san, Sengoku-san wants both of you in his office to debrief about the frozen boat incident." The young man bows, holding his down to avoid the wrath of the two exposed vice admirals.

One of the most important abilities of a true leader is knowing when to admit defeat. There often comes a time in battle where surrendrence is one's best option, and now is _definitely_ one of those times.

Garp and Kuzan turn to look at each other, moving Ace and I with them. Ace and I have little more than bored expressions on our faces, but below us, the vice admirals appear more dejected over facing Sengoku than they probably would have been in an _actual_ losing war.

"If you help me with my section of the cleaning, I'll get rid of your paperwork duties," Garp offers.

Kuzan does a short hum. "Fair enough."

[linebreak]

Sengoku sits at his desk, elbows rested on it while his fingers met to intertwine. He rests his chin on top of his fingers, and though at first glance he seems relaxed, the ghost-white knuckles beneath his face tell a different story. His elbows are pressed against the mahogany wood with so much strength that Nao swears the table is one more gram away from breaking.

The two men in question are lazily slumped in the two chairs in front of his desk, while their respective children sit on the floor beside them.

"So please, tell me again why I have half of the Celestial Dragons calling in to complain about an _iceberg ship_ stuck on their shore?" Sengoku asks, voice raising a pitch with each word that slips out of his mouth.

Garp laughs. "You see, it's funny—"

"What's funny is how many hours of cleaning duties that I'm assigning to you for the next five years—no, next _decade_ ," Sengoku barks, face tinted a bit more red than Nao thinks it probably should have been.

She giggles, knowing that the sound would trigger Sengoku into a whole other rant.

"And please, pray tell me why the Marine Headquarters became a _babysitting business_ after you screwed up the _very_ delicate relationship that we have with the Celestial Dragons," he shouts, and Nao swears he's angry enough to pull a Naruto move to enlarge his head.

Kuzan leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. He turns his head towards his now-partner-in-crime, signifying that it's all on Garp to pull them out of this disaster.

Garp laughs again. "Her? Oh, well, she's just my, er, _goddaughter_."

"Your _goddaughter_?" Sengoku repeats, not believing it one bit.

"Yep."

"You brought along your _grandson_ and your _goddaughter_ while you went to quell a _slave rebellion_?" Sengoku asks, knowing fully well that there's a hell of a lot more to the story than what Garp's letting him hear.

"It builds character."

Sengoku heaves a heavy sigh but refrains from throwing out any accusations with huge implications. Garp is his longtime friend—he'd go as far as to call him _family_ , really—and he'd rather not be privy to whatever illegal bullshit Garp probably did to obtain the two most unfazed kids he'd ever set his eyes on.

Kuzan places a huge hand on Nao's head, making her seem like a dwarf despite her having grown to a size that would have been considered tall for her age in her past life. "This one's Rosinante's, though."

Sengoku eyes Nao with suspicion. "She's his _kid_?"

"Yes."

Garp laughs, almost hysterically at the misunderstanding. "Kuzan, you're still as shit with communication as ever. This kid is the brat that I put under Rosi's care while I went to deal with the main conflict, but Rosi left for the covert mission and passed the torch on to Kuz over here since he still owes him that favor."

"Which favor?"

"You know, that time a decade ago when Kuz helped approve of raiding Mama-san's domain without knowing who she was based on a little shop owner's testimony that ." Garp points to Nao. "This is the same little brat from that repor—"

"Shut it, Garp."

"Oops." Garp doesn't sound apologetic in the slightest.

" _This_ is the same kid that had half a fleet stuck rebuilding a _whore house_ in the North Blue? _This one_?"

"S'been a long time, hasn't it?" Nao greets, cheekily beaming at the disgruntled Fleet Admiral.

Sengoku's had enough.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing for the billionth time that day. "Two months of cleaning duties. Garp, get your brat back onto Foosha. Kuzan, get whatever the hell you owe to Rosi done sometime before you start."

Kuzan lets a lazy smile spread across his face. "Sure."

Garp gives his comrades a short wave. "See ya', luck!"

Garp grabs ahold of Ace's wrist, tugging him towards the exit faster than Nao has ever seen Garp do _anything_. Meanwhile, Kuzan neary _waltzes_ after them, pausing to beckon for Nao to follow sits there, pondering what in the hell Garp meant by his good luck.

As Nao and Kuzan disappear from Sengoku's view, the icey man gives his boss a rather important sidenote.

"I'll start cleaning in a few years, then. Rosi wants me to help the brat with her devil fruit—whatever it is."

Sengoku's desk breaks in half.

" _Kuzan_!"

* * *

 **Are y'all** ** _ready_** **for Dad!kiji 'cause I definitely am! They're back in the marine base hehe and Snegoku's already losin' it.**

 **This chapter was pretty light compared to the massacre a few chapters ago lol. Did you guys like it? Do you like the serious ones or lighthearted ones more?**

 **Please leave a review! I get pretty bummed when I don't receive much feedback.**

 **As always, have a good day. :)**


	19. Chapter 19

**Sorry for the extended wait. Explanation and details about further updates in the A/N.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.**

* * *

"Get up."

Nao pants, indignantly meeting the Vice Admiral's unforgiving gaze with a glare of her own. Her ribs ache—hell, her entire _body_ aches—and her coughs being triggered by his icey devil fruit aren't doing anything to alleviate the pain.

"You're a sociopath," she accuses, though she knows he's only using a fraction of his energy to get her up to par. (To be fair, though, she'd end up being called a sociopath a _thousand_ times over after this ordeal.)

"If you can't even move out of the way of a single icicle, you're going to get skewered on the battlefield," he drones, looking bored with her lack of progress. "Shouldn't you have had _some_ grasp on your devil fruit by now?"

"It's been a week!" she snaps, voice raised a pitch higher to show her aggravation. She had thought that she was in for a rather easy few years of stagnancy, but Kuzan was hellbent on proving her assumptions wrong. "I don't even know what my devil fruit _is_."

He quirks an eyebrow, falling back into a casual stance to signify that their training is done. "Did you not bother to read its description in the book?"

She nearly falls over in exasperation. "That nonsense isn't even _interpretable_!"

And to her, it isn't. Regardless of how long she's been living in this world, there really is a limit to how much crazy crap she can wrap her head around. There's a lot of things that she's been forced to swallow, but the nonsensical descriptions of a supernatural-esque fruit from another world _isn't_ one of them. (This world is still, even after a _decade_ of burrowing her own place in it, _fucking weird_.)

"A child could make sense of it."

"Well, it's a _damn_ shame that I'm not a kid," she retorts, brushing off unseen dirt from her body as she gets up to move in closer to the the new psychopath that's taken over Rayleigh's role in her life.

He looks at her, clearly amused, and quickly moves his hand towards her.

Nao flinches, moving back but knowing full well that she has no chance of dodging that attack. (This, she swears, is really _fuckin'_ unfair—what kind of godly adult uses his abilities to beat down a _kid_?) Surprisingly, though, another blow to her body doesn't come. Instead, a light _smack_ is heard throughout the room, and what comes out of it is just a barely-seen red mark on her forehead.

 _Did he just—_

"What the _fuck_ ," she says aloud, not exactly meaning to voice her thoughts in such a crude manner, but can anyone really blame her when motherfuckin' _Kuzan_ just _smacked_ her forehead?

"You're a kid," he speaks flatly, "but you'll improve if you keep up the training with me."

Nao huffs, not sure whether to let the contact slide or protest against it. Letting it slide would be the mature thing to do, but she'd be damned before she lets someone who'd barely be older than her had she survived the first time around treat her like an invalid.

"You're an adult, but you'll lose the stick up your ass if you keep up the conversation with me," she bites back, giving him a dead stare.

It's a hell of a way to talk to a man that could probably destroy half of the world on a whim, but banter has always been the quickest way to whittle a place inside someone's heart. Incredibly enough, it works—Kuzan exhales air in what Nao decides to take as his own way of showing his amusement.

"See, you're already laughing! If god allows for it, maybe you'll even, dare I say it, give me _some_ kind of praise for miraculously putting up with these _icebergs_ being thrown at me day after day!" Nao's voice sounds as sweet as honey, but Kuzan shakes his head.

"Now you're asking for a bit too much there, brat. If you wanna complain to someone, complain to the blond idiot that decided to leave you in my care." He's grumbling in his own haughty way, but he does so with good humor, and Nao is certain that she's already starting to dig her own place into the now-Vice-Admiral's life.

It isn't exactly how she thought her plan would go, but it's nonetheless working out in its own screwed up way.

"Rosinante might be clumsy, but I'm pretty sure _he_ would've at least _tried_ to have explained to me what the hell this damn devil fruit does. Maybe if I knew what it did, I'd be able to _not_ get my ass kicked by blocks of ice," Nao speaks pointedly.

Kuzan sighs. There's no way for him to escape his role as her impromptu teacher now.

"It's teleportation, sort of. For someone at _your_ skill level, that's all you really need to know. You're displacing something with another something, but there has to be some sort of exchange going on. You won't be able to just appear out of thin air, but I've no idea what it is you'd have to exchange." He shrugs. "It's your devil fruit, figure it out yourself."

Nao straightens her back, no longer in a defensive stance to ward away Kuzan's attacks. This is something she has to think about—something she _needs_ to understand before she can give Fate a metaphorical ass-kicking. The fruit isn't a fraud or anything—her unwanted teleportation with Rosinante and Ace in tow had proved that—but she still hasn't got a clue as to what could've been exchanged for that short distance covered.

Why there? Why that exact spot and not, per se, the ship's deck, or maybe even Garp's office—places she's _much_ more familiar with compared to the cargo hold. There had to have been something that made it so that she was brought to that _specific_ spot, but what? Perhaps being able to fully visualize the area held a helping hand towards bringing the unsuspecting trio to that spot, but it sure as hell didn't explain what it was that was _exchanged_ for them to be there in the first place.

And then it clicks.

The injuries she had sustained—the amount of her own blood pooling on the wooden planks beneath their feet—it all left something tangible for her to exchange herself with.

She wraps her hand around her forearm, digging her nails deep into her own skin. Flinching as the blood begins to seep out, she holds her arm out, pouring the thick liquid a couple of feet away from her.

Kuzan looks at her curiously, but raises no questions.

"Throw another attack at me—a _small_ one _,_ " she requests, and Kuzan finally reaches the same conclusion as she had.

"Don't go haunting me if your head gets blown off."

Nao cracks a crooked smile. "No promises."

In a flash, a branch of ice shoots its way towards her, going nowhere near the speed that Nao is fully aware that Kuzan can reach. It still, of course, is absolutely lethal, but this is exactly what she needs. The blood pumping through her veins, the fear nearly striking her down by its own right—this is what has driven her from the very start.

She ignores the ensured death rushing at her at a fifty miles per hour, instead focusing every bit of her energy on intensely staring at the puddle of blood a few feet away, willing herself to move, move _move_!

The ice barely pierces her chest, drawing out no more than a single droplet of blood before she finds herself sprawled on the floor, drenching her training clothes in the blood that had dripped out of her arm only moments before. It might have taken a hell of a while, and she might've still landed in a position that would, at most, momentarily _postpone_ her death in a battle, but she still did it nonetheless.

"Boo-yah!" she shouts joyously, not giving a damn about how her 'successful' attempt at using her devil fruit would probably be considered anything _but_ helpful in quite literally _any_ other situation.

"You ended up with a slit wrist, an uncleanable shirt, and a landing that would still get you killed either way," Kuzan snorts.

"Doesn't change the fact that I still fuckin' did that!" she replies back, unable to wipe the dumb smile off of her face.

For a moment, she is so overjoyed that she almost _forgets_ her purpose for trying so damn hard to get stronger. Changing the Fate of world? Messing with whatever God controls such strange, screwed up destinies—all of it had meant jack shit to her for a fraction of a second, and then it all comes crashing back down.

She throws a glance at the frozen attack that had still hit her regardless of her semi-successful attempt at wielding her devil fruit as something that could be used defensively. It's frozen in place, both literally and figuratively, and a pang of annoyance hits her harder than the icicle apparently would ever have.

"You stopped your attack," she states matter-of-factly.

"I'd rather not owe the blond _another_ favor for screwing up this one," Kuzan answers a question that she never even asked, but they both know it's an excuse.

"You're underestimating me." Now it's an accusation.

He raises his hands defensively. "Me? Underestimating _you_ , a random brat that Garp picked up on his travels who, thus far, has only just _barely_ been able to stay alive against the normal attacks that I've thrown at her? Why, I'd _never_."

Nao flushes, both embarrassed over her past fumbles and of her slight _over_ estimation of herself. Regardless, though, she refuses to take the verbal attack silently. "I'm not an ideal student, but you're not exactly the ideal teacher yourself, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah, at the very least, we know you're not _completely_ incompetent," he drawls. "Hurry up and get changed, I was supposed to be in Sengoku's office _ages_ ago."

He turns around, leaving without her. His hand shoots up in a short wave of goodbye, but he doesn't bother to look back to see if she sees the small gesture.

Nao gives his receding figure a flat stare. This apathetic _buffoon_ is one of the marine's greatest assets. _This_ guy. The thought of such a lazy man being held up to such incredibly prestigious standards is almost laughable, but she knows all too well what he's truly capable of, and for that she keeps her snarky comments to a minimum.

Finally alone, though, she takes the time needed to change as an opportunity to reflect on the past week or so she's spent freeloading at the motherfucking _Marine Headquarters_. Here she is, getting trained by a guy who'd eventually play a huge role in killing the little kid she'd _just_ promised to help out, and she's _still_ handling it without having a complete mental breakdown.

Now _that's_ what she'd called a fuckin' accomplishment.

Reaching the bathroom that she's spent _far_ too many hours cleaning blood up in recently, she takes a moment to really _look_ at herself in the mirror. She doesn't worry about anyone walking in on her—even the almighty marines faltered when it came down to figuring out how to treat an adolescent female. On her first day training with Kuzan, one of the marines had walked in on her bandaging up in the bathroom after, and since then the entire goddamned base has steered clear of the area for at _least_ two hours after their training session is done.

As ridiculous as their fear of her is, now she is grateful for it. Privacy is a rare thing to have in a place filled with so much classified information.

Her reflection looks back at her as she sterilizes the miniscule wound created in her chest, and she looks on at it in wonder.

This is her.

This black-haired brat with porcelain skin and all too dainty limbs (a byproduct of being a courtesan's daughter) is _her_. Choppy hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, black bangs that are just barely revealing sharp, hazel eyes that stare harshly at whatever the universe throws her way.

This is her.

Adorning a uniform she had once perhaps hated as a child staring into a TV screen. Adorning a uniform she had once even _despised_ as she watched the same uniforms appear on the backs of men that had burned down the first home she had come to know in this life.

This is her.

Standing in the middle of the marine base's bathroom, next to a run-down, wooden stall that might have once been painted a bright shade of white, detailed with stripes the very same color as the marine's signature ocean-blue.

Holy shit. Her breathing hastens, her face pales.

This is he—

"Now what's got Kuzan's brat all worked up?"

Her eyes flick up, no longer looking at her own reflection, but rather at the reflection of the man standing behind her.

Sakazuki Akainu.

* * *

 **Akainu, the devil (to me and all other Ace lovers out there) has entered the stage!**

 **I'm so sorry for taking so long to update. I'm not gonna lie, this has been the roughest couple weeks of my life. I won't give details, but I was recently a victim of assault and have been trying recuperate from that. I will continue to update this fic, but can't promise as frequent updates as I used to do. I normally wouldn't reveal such a personal event in my life to you guys, but as my readers, I feel you have the right to know specifically why I've had a hard time writing as of late.**

 **Thank you for your patience.**

 **I put a lot into writing this chapter. I hope you guys enjoy! If you did, please leave a review! Right now, your words bring me more joy than you can imagine.**

 **Have a great day!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

"S-Sakazuki-san," Nao utters, stuttering despite how every bit of her urges herself to bury her fear and mask it in faux arrogance as she's always done.

She bows her head, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering—a side effect of the sheer terror that's rushing down her spine. It's an ironically freezing tingle—a contrast to the overbearing heat that often resonated from Sakazuki—spanning the length between her temples to her toes, courtesy of the man who is _certainly_ trying to be intimidating on purpose.

And it works—it works _damn well_ , in fact. If intimidation is his goal, then Nao sure as hell has been effectively intimidated. Unfortunately, though, intimidation can't be _all_ there is to it—a man whose role was pivotal to the original timeline could not be so one-track-minded. There's more to it, and Nao wishes nothing more to indulge herself in that same knowledge; this is what she has lived for—throwing herself into the thick of every shitshow she can possibly create through the ripples of her actions.

But to find herself in the middle of _this_ particular situation requires something that she's never been all that great at having.

 _Respect_.

She hates it—hates that she has to pay respect to a man who she'd much rather manipulate in her own twisted way if her body and mind would let her, but as she is now, she's only a few degrees from melting into a puddle right before him. Swallowing her pride, bowing her head down, addressing him as formerly as her insolent streak will allow her—it's all something she must do to make the most of this predicament.

Heat presses against her body—a result of the then-Vice Admiral's devil fruit that so ironically contrasted that of Aokiji. A sly smile crosses his face as he acknowledges that, _yes_ , the level of his power is _eons_ beyond that of the little 'kid' that his fellow vice admiral dragged in. It's a sick show of superiority—a blatant display of her inferiority—but Nao can't fault him for that. (After all, creating relatively sick shows seems to have become her guilty pleasure in recent years.)

"I see you've learned _something_ from Kuzan," he remarks, referencing the fact that Nao is able to stand in front of him at all without completely crumpling under the force of his presence. "Maybe he's not hopeless after all, if only a little too… _charitable_."

Nao is ticked off—undeniably so at her new station at the marine base being said to be more like a _charitable_ act than anything—but showing annoyance would only prove a lack of self control. This, overbearing presence aside, is a battle of mental fortitude, and Nao will be _damned_ before she loses in a battle of wits. Physical limitations aside, her mental will power is the thing that put her where she is in the first place.

A sickeningly sweet smile makes its way onto her face.

"Charitable, yes, but the same can be said about Sengoku-san, no? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember a certain blond being brought to the marines in a similar fashion by the now Fleet Admiral. Perhaps his _charitability_ is why everyone suspects that Kuzan-san will eventually rise to the same rank as Sengoku-san!" Nao chirps cheerfully, at the same insinuating that Sakazuki's lack of empathy is why he _wouldn't_ become Fleet Admiral (though Fate has made it so that he, unless Nao pulls some _wicked_ shit, probably _will_ become the face of the marines).

Sakazuki returns her smile with one of his own, but there's something about it that throws Nao off. It's neither malicious nor cruel—rather, it's almost the _opposite_. (Almost, but still a chilling sight nonetheless.)

"Maybe a sharp-tongued brat like you will be able to whip Kuzan into shape. If he becomes strong enough to lead the marines as a sturdy head, then I have no qualms against it," Sakazuki hums, and Nao is so bewildered that she swears she's been thrown into yet _another_ alternate universe.

"A sturdy head?" Nao repeats, more curious about what the surprisingly amiable—or at least, as amiable as someone as widely known as a despicable man can be—vice admiral means than she is eager to escape from the originally unwanted interaction.

He gives her an odd look, as if to say, ' _Duh_.'

"Who's in charge doesn't matter—it's who will bring justice as a whole to this world. What, are you a pirate sympathizer?" he asks, sounding just as curious as she had about his own words.

It comes to her as quite a surprise—the lack of insufferable arrogance in his tone. He's speaking to her as, shockingly enough, somewhat of an equal—perhaps as one would speak to a fellow underling. As strange as it is, though, it makes sense. Simply being powerful couldn't allow someone to climb the ranks of an organization as dependent on leadership as the marines. Having a despicable leader would only bring down the age-old military force—to have become the Fleet Admiral in the somewhat near future would require more than just brawn.

"And if I am?" Nao shoots back, taking a chance with her reply to what would usually be an accusatory question.

Sakazuki simply shakes his head. Still condescending, yes, but not in a way that makes Nao want to drag the man to the grave with her. A pang of guilt hits her—a side effect of her short yet enjoyable meeting with Ace—but her need to know more about _everything_ triumphs that guilt.

"Most young marines are," Sakazuki continues, surprising her with an attempt at explaining his train of thought. "Spend enough time on the hellish sea, though, and you'll eventually see that the weight of a few good pirates is nowhere near enough to make up for the crimes committed by those other bastards."

"But—" Nao's almost at a loss for words "—it doesn't mean that they _all_ are guilty of those crimes."

He looks her dead in the eye as he makes his next, and final, statement on the matter.

"They might not do any harm themselves, but they keep that evil world alive with their existence in it."

Nao can practically _feel_ the hatred in his voice as he states those last words. She's a fool, but she's nowhere near dumb enough to try to continue a conversation that has clearly been brought to an end. Gritting her teeth to stop herself from spouting out anything that she would regret, Nao bows her head once more.

"To what do I owe this meeting, though. You've had to have noticed the way your men avoid this bathroom like the plague for hours after Kuzan-san and I are done training," Nao elaborates on her confusion as to why Sakazuki has found himself in 'her' bathroom in the first place.

"I'm tired of my men leaving to take a piss while we're training because they couldn't take one beforehand. This will probably convince them to not be so frightened of a brat." He shrugs—a gesture almost too casual for a man as fearful as him to do. Almost as a side note, he adds one

more thing. "Kuzan and I's promotion announcement will be given soon. I guessed his one and only student wouldn't be informed of such an event if the only person in contact with that student is the unreliable bastard himself. It'll be announced at the courtyard in half in hour."

Nao blinks—did she hear that right?

Sakazuki—big ole', terrifyingly powerful, almighty _murderer_ of a boy whose company she rather enjoyed—has gone out of his way to tell her that someone he's figured is important to her has a vital event planned? An event that _he_ thinks she'd want to see? Has she finally lost it, or has she just hit her head a few too many times to get any other meaning out of what Sakazuki said?

Whatever it is, Nao figures a respectful reply is the way to go.

"Thank you for telling me," she speaks almost robotically, still not believing what her own mind is telling her.

Sakazuki nods uncomfortably before making his exit, leaving her to her own devices.

Alone again, Nao lets herself relax, only just now noticing the slight tremble that had taken over her since the moment she'd locked eyes with the terrifyingly powerful man. As odd as it sounds, she can no longer fully see him as she had prior to this interaction—he's more than just any other villain now. His future atrocities aside, she's finally been given insight on more than just _what_ he did.

She's finally figuring out _why_ —a feat her childhood-self would've _died_ to have been able to do.

But this is no time to spend working out the plans that had once depended on the stagnant state of everyone's characters _before_ meeting the beloved protagonist.

It's almost, she thinks as she rushes out of the dingy bathroom, _silly_ that such a thing has never occurred to her. These people around her—both the ones playing both major _and_ minor roles in her life—aren't just _characters_. This isn't the world she had known through pages in a manga or through images on a screen; these people are just that— _people_.

Real, living, breathing _people_.

People with dreams, ambitions. People who had a past before her, and people who will have a future after her. They're people with their own demons in their head—with their own motivations for why they do what they do.

Clambering down the hall in an attempt to find a good spot to witness her impromptu teacher's promotion, Nao hums in excitement. It's strange, really, how such a setback in her once well thought-out plans can make her so eager to write up another one—to web out all the alternate outcomes influenced by factors she had never even thought to take into account.

These people are just that— _people_ —and like all people will do, even the slightest push in one direction can alter their paths forever. All Nao has to do is figure out which way she should push her pawns in, and how hard she should shove them down that road. If she plays her cards right, and if she makes good use of the knowledge that has practically been _given_ to her through her new home in the marines, she can truly manipulate this world however the _fuck_ she wants to.

It's almost too good to be true.

And as she steps out of the main building and into the courtyard, a new angle crashes down onto her, proving that it _is_ too good to be true.

The sight that graces her is one that she'd seen before, though it had admittedly been much more flat and two-dimensional back then. The execution stand stands tall behind her, placed nearly directly above the base's main exit. Seeing it all is surreal—the crescent moon that acts as nearly a death trap for intruders, the soft roar of side chatter between the thousands of marines gathered to witness the announcement.

A different image appears in her head, though, and just like that the grandiose feeling induced by the vastness and _bigness_ of it all disappears. In its place is a sadder feeling—a solemn wave of guilt as the execution of the now-innocent little boy replays itself in Nao's head.

Except this time, it's different. Physically, it's all the same, but the mental anguish she feels goes beyond that tinge of sadness that had come from when she had first seen it behind a screen. It hits her then, suddenly and hard—the fact that this world is no longer the result of some form of entertainment. This is now the world the she resides in—an entire world pitted against a boy that she'd basically _sworn_ to save this time around.

It's almost too much to bear—suffocating, really—but she will take on the burden of it nonetheless.

As quickly as it had gone, the sound roaring crowd and the glory that encases all things concerning the marines comes right back, and almost in tenfold at that. Nao puts on a fake smile—one that has become a little too familiar for her own tastes— and finds herself shyly greeting the now-semi-familiar faces that have become a part of her everyday life at headquarters.

A familiar face here, a familiar face there—it's almost all too easy. Without having to really lift a finger at all, Nao has somehow wedged herself in the thick of it all. A few hands reach down to ruffle her hair, giving her friendly, touchy gestures inherent to any organizations made up of mostly men.

It's strange, to say the least, but now is no time to ponder how odd it is that she's found herself a place in such an unforgiving world—in such an unforgiving _life_.

A bell rings, and the chattering men fall silent as Sengoku takes the stage. No one—or at least, no one with more than half of a braincell—is paying too much attention to the Fleet Admiral. This announcement has been a long time coming. Even Nao doesn't care enough to hang onto every praising words he says about the two promoting vice admirals.

Instead, Nao focuses on observing their actions—the strange way they're carrying themselves. Perhaps she had been too shallow when she had first seen One Piece through a screen—or maybe too young to notice the underlying relationships not frequently spoken about. Seeing it firsthand, however, makes it almost _too_ clear to see.

While not exactly looking elated to be standing so close to each other, Kuzan and Sakazuki don't look all that upset either. In fact, at most one could assume that they had a begrudging partnership—a strange thing to see when, up until thirty minutes ago, Nao has been certain that Sakazuki is the devil incarnate.

Sakazuki turns his head ever so slightly, locking eyes with his icy counterpart. To Nao's surprise (though to her discredit, nothing should be all to shocking at this point in the shitshow) neither of them look away, nor do they exchange some sort of suspicious glare towards each other.

Instead, they laugh—a snarky laugh, sure, and one with just a pinch of animosity in it, but no more than what would be in a glance shared by two lifelong rivals.

It basically confirms what she's already known.

That morning's breakfast climbs up in her throat.

This world has changed _far_ beyond what she's expected.

* * *

 **Thank you for all your kind words regarding my situation! I'm okay now, really, but your support means the world to me. I tried my best to update ASAP with a quality chapter! Let me know if you enjoyed this little insight on Sakazuki's character. My biggest pet peeve is underdeveloped characters, so don't fret about me not fleshing out all of these prominent people.**

 **Did you like seeing Sakazuki interact with Nao? How do y'all feel about where this is headed? Don't worry, Nao isn't becoming a full fledged marine in this story, though that would be cool!**

 **If you liked it, let me know with a review! I'd love to be able to hit 150 reviews soon! Much love to you guys!**

 **Have a great day!~**


	21. Chapter 21

**Hey guys! I do apologize for taking another hiatus without informing you all. There's more explanation in the A/N below, but for now, please enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

Mindless chatter barely registers in the back of Nao's mind as she hums during her walk from the bustling cafeteria to the much more quiet section of the base that held the offices of the higher ups.

Two months have gone by since her accidental babysitter's promotion, and, in that time, she's transitioned from his pupil to what feels more like an errand girl. It's, of course, nothing that she's _complaining_ about—he still kicks her ass around when he has the time to do it—it's just brought her into the clutches of a man who she'd rather not be all that close to.

Sakazuki— _Akainu_.

In fact, in this very moment, her egregiously tiny limbs are suffering under the combined weight of Kuzan _and_ Akainu's endless amount of paperwork, though the former would much rather jump into the North Blue than be forced to sit down and sort through the waste of a forest. It had been with that sentiment in mind that a deal had been begrudgingly forged among the three of them.

Aokiji hated paperwork, thus Akainu would (sometimes quite literally) burn through both their workloads. Akainu hates people, so Aokiji lent him rights over Nao's errand girls duty so _she_ could take care of all the formalities involved with being an Admiral. A diplomat is waiting to receive some nonsensical paper about a minor lawsuit happening in an island under Akainu's jurisdiction? No worries, send the child to deliver it with an uncannily sincere-seeming apology and a bright grin plastered onto her face.

And Nao, well, if anyone ever asked about her time spent as _basically_ a marine, she'd be able to grumble and moan for _hours_ about how she'd gotten the short end of the stick. After a few—or rather, _more_ than a few—drinks, however, she'd probably be singing a different tune. Yes, the tasks were tedious, and yes, the extra time Aokiji now had had gone straight to her hours she had with him kicking her ass nearly right back into her past life.

But she—and she'll say this more quietly than anything she's ever said in her life—was happy.

She, against all odds, has wedged herself into the commonplace lives of these not-so commonplace men, and has somehow, to her own surprise, hasn't fuckin' lost it yet.

She sways to the side as the stack of papers teeters over, threatening to create a mess that many would consider worse than the not-so soon-to-come war on Marineford. If there's one thing Nao has learned during her time as the admirals' errand girl, it's that there's only one thing that can disgust a marine more than a pirate—trivial work.

A yelp reaches the tip of her tongue as she finds her sense of balance losing its battle with the paperwork. She finds herself feeling utterly defeated, succumbing to the fact that she'd probably be cursed with cleaning up the mess before she could report to Garp's office. He had asked for her earlier, but she had postponed in order to deliver this hellish paper tower. Only now, as she seems to slip in slow motion, does she regret procrastinating the request.

Before the stack(and her dignity) can go flying, however, ice wraps itself around Nao's waist, straightening her spine and replanting both of her feet onto the ground.

"I could hear you approaching from a mile away, kid," Kuzan chastises from inside his office, not sounding the least bit concerned for Nao after her almost-fall.

She resists the urge to reply with something cheeky—any attitude would translate into a few harder blows dealt to her during their training session. Instead, she shakes away any debris that might have made it onto her uniform and puts on a benign smile.

"Thank you," she speaks sweetly. This ridiculous stack had arisen from an equally ridiculous cause, and Nao had no intentions of riling up her superior before dropping the bad news.

Kuzan rolls his eyes, crossing his arms to ensure that Nao knows damn well that he isn't falling for any innocent act. "What bullshit had to happen for this much paperwork to go to me?"

She winces. Kuzan is getting a little too good at reading her mannerisms. "It's not a huge deal. Just a new recruit that seems... ' _promising_ '... as some of the lieutenants put it. Apparently some of the higher ups think he could climb the ranks pretty quickly, and they wanna know if you or Akainu want anything to do with him."

Kuzan's stare expresses a level of boredom that Nao wasn't even aware could exist. "One guy needs _that_ much paperwork?"

Nao returns his stare with an exasperated one of her own. "That's what I said when they told me to take this mess to you guys."

He offers her a hum, intending for it to sound like he was really considering going through the new guy's files. "Pass."

Nao resists the urge to shake her head in mock disdain for the newly promoted Admiral. She would be lying if she tried to claim that she expected any sort of different answer from the innately laid back man. The only times she ever saw him genuinely give a damn about anything was when he was kicking her ass with enough force to send her spiraling out of the stratosphere, and, even then, that interest only appeared because it offered him some sort of entertainment within the mundane base.

"You're slacking off again, Kuzan?" a new voice comments, clearly amused. The entrance brings the hall's temperature back up to that of a tropical island as he approaches them.

"I'd rather not do work that anyone else in this place could easily do for me," Kuzan drawls back, and if he's annoyed at the backhanded observation, he doesn't show it.

Nao, however, is much more blatant with her irritation. A few months of _basically_ being the two men's personal secretary has weaned her away from any real fear of the two. Of course, she'd still probably be too petrified to move if either of the two were to face off with her in a battle setting, but the Marine Headquarters—at least, the _current_ Marine Headquarters—aren't a battlezone. While safely within the echoey hallways of the base, Nao has no qualms about taking a piss at the two admirals.

With that being said, she still respects the hell out of them—though most of that respect is paid to the colder of the two. She just respects them in a tongue-in-cheek sort of manner.

"Can you two finish this debate _after_ someone takes these papers out of my hands?" she requests. "You're going to be short of an errand girl if I get crushed under this bullshit."

"Not feeling like it, I'll just take the next brat that Garp drags home," Kuzan responds, knowing damn well the stack of papers is about to topple over.

"Alrighty then," she chirps back.

Both Kuzan and Sakazuki look at her quizzically. They know all too well that Nao isn't the type to take their more childish demands seriously. Before either of them can take the load out of her hands, Nao pretends to sway precariously to the side, successfully knocking off the first dozen or so sheets.

"Oops."

Kuzan instinctively smacks the back of her head, only to retract his hand in horror as the force shakes her just enough to send another dozen flying. The thought of having to actually _clean_ is more than enough to terrify him out of giving Nao another disciplinary tap.

But Nao pauses then, no longer entertained by how easy it is to aggravate the two men who should probably have the most level heads in the base. Instead, her face pales in a way that it has only ever done when the most frightening pieces of the timeline begin to fall into her hands.

This time, it _was_ quite literally in her hands, though now it lay on the floor.

Among the scattered stacks of useless bullshit that paperwork usually consists of, a common recruiter's casefile rests. Her hands tremble slightly—a miniscule motion only addressed by Aokiji with a slight furrow of the brow. He says nothing, though, effectively keeping the other admiral in the room out of the loop.

Sakazuki doesn't pay any attention to the slight crack in Nao's composure; he doesn't know her well enough to sense when something is off. He does, however, notice what she's looking at and goes picks it up.

"Vergo? Hm…" His eyes briefly skim over the various notes jotted down on the file. "He's getting a lot of praise for a new recruit."

Nao feels her stomach drop before anything is even said by the Admiral.

"I'll see to him," he volunteers, probably feeling like he's doing Nao a favor rather than damning another part of her plan.

Before Nao can protest, Akainu has easily taken the stack out of her arms. He doesn't spare her or Kuzan any word or gesture of farewell, and he ignores the other papers still left on the ground as he turns to walk back towards his office.

Nao finds herself internally wilting when pit against the whims of the more serious of the three admirals. That's just the kind of man that Akainu is—overpowering and all too much of an accidental hindrance to her goals.

But she has no time to go through the whole mental gymnastics act to calculate what the potential consequences of her little joke are. She has to be in Garp's office in three minutes, and unless a crazily suicidal urge is about to overcome her, she has no intentions of being late.

She pats Kuzan's arm to indicate that he, too, will be skinned alive if he doesn't hurry along with her.

Kuzan sighs from behind her as he notices her futile sprint towards Garp's office. Practically being twice her height, a slightly fast-paced walk places him next to her. He'd be amused by it on any other day, but the thought of pissing Garp off and subsequently being punished for doing so is enough for him to pass on the opportunity of being slightly amused by Nao's struggles.

Nao lets out a dog-like cry of surprise as Aokiji's cold arms wrap around her, bringing her up to sling her over his shoulder. The move garners snickers from the various marines that they pass as they traverse through the base, and Nao finds herself blushing a bright red. She doesn't try to leap off of him, though. In this rare occasion, it would be much better to be humiliated rather than late.

Garp's infamous guffaw can be heard long before they reach his door, and Nao feels her irritation coming back tenfold. He hadn't indulged her with the specifics of why he so desperately need her in his office that specific time, but it _better_ have been for a good reason if _Kuzan_ had to be her mode of transportation there.

Kuzan doesn't bother knocking.

"Garp," he speaks in a dull tone, disrupting the Vice Admiral in the middle of what looks to be a normal call through a Den Den Mushi.

"Where's the brat?"

Kuzan turns around to show Nao dangling from his shoulder, earning a shit-eating grin from Garp.

"Hey, Rosi, looks like your brat's become Kuzan's favorite punching bag on the base," Garp teases, getting a wide-eyed look from Nao at the mention of who it was exactly on the line.

Rosinante's reply is muffled to her, but she _can_ detect some sort of lecturing tone that's _probably_ directed towards everyone's favorite ice-man.

"Give me another year, and he'll become _my_ punching bag," she snaps, knowing damn well that that much progress is far beyond the realm of possibility. Her snarky quip is, however, enough for Kuzan to decide that he's had enough of carrying her around, and he drops her without hesitation.

Or at least, he _thinks_ he does.

But as Nao stares at the floor, bracing for the impact, she discovers that the pain of slamming into the wooden floorboards never comes. What _does_ register, however, is an impressed ' _Ooh_ ' from Garp.

"... But I guess he _has_ taught her something," Garp adds to his previous jab.

Nao stares down at her firmly planted feet in amazement. Sure, the past couple of months of training has allowed her to have _some_ grasp over the whole replacement deal, but that always comes at the cost of a _shit ton_ of blood loss. She looks around in wonder—perhaps she's fallen and scraped her knee in here sometimes before, and that blood somehow allowed her to move.

Her search is halted by Kuzan clearing his throat. His fingers are pinched together, and as she squints, she realizes he's holding a singular _hair_ that had been picked off his shoulder.

" _Sweet!"_ she exclaims, and one of those rare, begrudging half-smiles appears on Kuzan's face. "I didn't know that hair could work too!"

Garp gives a quick hand gesture, indicating for them to celebrate the accomplishment later. He holds out the snail receiver. "Rosinante has a… _complaint_ to tell you."

Nao cocks her head to the side, confused, but grabs the Den Den Mushi anyways. "What is it?"

A heavy sigh is heard.

"You know so damn much about the future, right, kid? Did you know I was going to be _stabbed_ by this brat over here, too?!"

* * *

 **The Marine HQ is a silly, light hearted mess at the moment, but fret not, drama and such will come hehe.**

 **Again, I'm so sorry for being gone for so long. Life just hit me like a train after the accident, and I spent a week or so in the hospital just trying to recoup. I've somewhat gotten my life back together, though! I can't promise much, but I will try to get out weekly updates again!**

 **Please comment if you can! I'd love to see who all is still here and hear your input on this chapter. I'm a little rusty, not gonna lie.**

 **Have a great day y'all.**


	22. Chapter 22

I told you guys that I'd try to be somewhat consistent with posting again! Thank you for the overwhelming support I've received throughout the entirety of this fic so far. I truly appreciate it.

 **Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece**

* * *

Nao stifles a snicker.

"You're complaining about a stab wound? You tossed the kid out a window," she speaks pointedly, earning confused looks from Garp and Kuzan.

"How did you—" Rosinante cuts himself off. There's no use in asking a question that will never be answered. Instead, he takes a second to recompose himself, lowering his voice so as to prevent the others in the room from hearing any potential dirty laundry.

"There's a kid here, Nao, a little brat from Flevance," he begins, and Nao leans against Garp's desk to steady herself in a casual manner. Even now, literal _years_ before anything of much importance can happen, Nao is being handed a chance to alter bits and pieces of the future.

There's a bit of irony here that doesn't go unnoticed. Here Rosinante is—the boy who might as well have been Sengoku's son—complaining about the same boy who'd eventually aid in saving the life of Garp's own grandson, and Garp, standing mere feet from her, will probably never know it.

"What about him?" Her voice is shakier than it should be.

Garp is far too relaxed to take notice of the minor change in Nao's demeanor, but Kuzan is not as easily distracted.

He gives her a pointed look, but she subtly shakes her head, and he respects that.

Or at least, respect is the word Nao would usually like to use to describe why the icy admiral is so quick to let her have free reign over her own actions. In retrospect, though, it's probably just the man not giving enough of a damn about the amount of damage someone as small as Nao could possibly do. If the marine headquarters itself isn't mere seconds away from burning down, Kuzan wouldn't be budging an inch from his day-to-day routine.

"Is he… Is the kid going to die?" Rosinante asks, his voice barely above a whisper at this point. Nao doesn't know if it's for the sake of privacy or out of fear of jinxing Law's chance of survival.

Her head might as well have begun to spin at a hundred thousand miles per hour. There isn't much she can say that _wouldn't_ screw the klutz of a marine over. If she lets him know that Law will somehow survive, he might not be as fervent in his pursuit of a cure for the kid. If she lies and says he'll die, Rosinante might just give up to begin with, and Law will never have the Ope Ope no Mi. It's a lose-lose situation, and there's no way for her to elaborate on an answer with an admiral and a vice admiral in the room.

So she settles for the full, honest truth.

"I don't know." And, in all honesty, she _doesn't_ know if the timeline has become too convoluted for Law to survive.

"That's a shame—"

"But," Nao interrupts him, not wanting to leave the boy's survival up to Fate's fickleness, "keep him close. He might do you a favor one of these days."

To the others in the room, it's simply a word of advice for the awkward blond. To Rosinante, though, it's a hint of sorts—or perhaps some kind of discrete command. ' _Keep him close, you have to_.'

Garp adorns a shit-eating grin, looking at something behind Nao—or rather, a _someone_ that's slowly approaching the slightly panicked girl.

"Sengoku! Congratulations on the grandson!" he announces, nearly barking with laughter as he does so. "You know, Rosinante sure does have a bad habit of picking up strays."

Sengoku crosses his arms, giving Garp a accusatory look. He gestures towards Nao. " _You're_ the one whose stray is in the room."

" _Me?_ Taking in a _stray_?" Garp raises his eyebrows in mock surprise, feigning a look of offense towards the fairly accurate accusation. He is, after all, the same guy who willingly fosters the son of the Pirate King himself—but no one really knows of that one yet. "I think we all can agree that this kid has already been passed onto Kuzan."

"I'm just taking care of that favor that I owe Rosinante," Kuzan speaks flatly.

"Nevermind that. What the hell are you going on about though, Garp? Rosinante's been trying to get rid of those three brats in that crew for the past two months. He threw one of them out a window."

"Threw him out a window?" Garp repeats, his smile growing wider than anyone had even thought possible. "Ah, according to Nao over here, that same brat that got punted is your kid's new protégé."

Sengoku grabs the Den Den Mushi from Nao.

"Rosinante! You're on a _mission_ here, you know. You can't keep bringing back kids to the base! We're not an adoption agency or an orphanage," he chastises, though he's only doing so to keep up the strict image he's made for himself.

Unfortunately for Sengoku, though, everyone there has long since seen past his farce.

"Rosinante is one of the kids _you_ brought back to the base—"

"How about we all just agree that everyone here at headquarters is shit at being a shitty person?" Nao chirps, butting in to prevent the two long-time friends from bickering with one another. Despite being two of the most arguably feared men within the marines, the two sure do have a knack for acting like harmless children.

But the same comment meant to get the conversation at hand back on track instead serves to garner a more lively response from the usually ambivalent admiral in the room. " _Everyone?_ That hot headed idiot has done more than a few questionable things."

An awkward silence envelopes the office. There's no denying the slight hint of animosity that most of the more approachable members of the marines held towards Admiral Akainu.

Not even Nao, the unofficially assigned liaison between the two admirals, could say much in Sakazuki's defense. Hell, she is even _more_ familiar with the horrendous things that that man is capable of doing—she is, after all, the only person there who knows just how much harm he'll eventually come to do to mostly innocent people.

But the Akainu of this year isn't that same murderous monster of the forthcoming years. This Akainu is just, well, a _jerk_ , and it takes much more than a few morally wrong deeds done to make a man hated while in an organization as inherently brutal as this one. Until the ones that are suffering due to his actions are the people who his fellow marines hold dear to them, they'll turn a blind eye to whatever he does.

So this, Nao decides, is strange.

"Huh? You didn't seem all that angry towards him when you two were promoted," Nao points out before she can stop herself, too bemused by Kuzan's sudden change in stance towards his fellow admiral.

She's more ignorant than she'd like to be to the events going on within the One Piece world during this year. Little had been given in the original timeline, but that didn't at all mean that _nothing_ would happen. The scope of her information just happens to be fairly limited when the only person who _can_ keep her up to date with current events just so happens to be the man who is quite possibly the most reserved marine to exist. Kuzan never talks, and until now, that hadn't been much of a problem.

But something has changed.

Kuzan shakes his head, and Garp and Sengoku refrain from jumping in to defend Sakazuki. "That promotion was _before_ the survivors from Flevance came out with what _really_ happened to their town."

Nao's face drains of all color.

There isn't _supposed_ to be any survivors from Flevance—none aside from Law, at least. What the hell had gone on with the timeline to prevent the marines from being successful with their genocide mission?

The sound of a throat clearing draws her back to reality.

"That's what I was actually originally calling about," Rosinante starts. "There's interviews being released from the people of Flevance, but they're all being published in very niche newspapers. No one knows who's leaking all of the information, but people are losing trust in the World Government. Doflamingo wants Law and I to go and see if there are any more survivors who'd want to join his crew. He seems fixated on amassing more people with hatred against the government for his crew."

"Flevance… Sakazuki had requested for a fleet to be taken there earlier today," Garp breaks the news, looking more distraught that he should have been over what someone with Akainu's jurisdiction is capable of ordering.

The lighthearted air that the room had had is now nowhere to be found.

No one can find the proper words to articulate what it is that they're all wondering—' _Will the marines have to go back and 'finish' the job?_ ' They know all too well which course of action Akainu will take—maintaining stability is what he prioritizes above all—but it isn't one that anyone else is eager to do. Even men with as much blood on their hands as the ones in this room have a place where they draw the line.

"Kuzan," Garp leads off, disregarding the fact that the admiral is ranked above him and thus has no obligation to follow any orders. "I recall you having made a complaint about being stuck at headquarters for too long of a time. There's probably going to be nothing happening to the base that Sengoku and I can't handle if you'd want to go on one of those bike rides you enjoy so much. I'm sure Nao wants to revisit the North Blue either way."

"Garp…" Sengoku warns, but even he can't prevent himself from wanting to do _something_ to prevent another massacre happening by their own hands.

"Kuzan, I need to see Nao to make sure that you've been keeping up with that favor, too," Rosinante adds, creating another excuse for the admiral to sabotage whatever it is the world government might have them do.

Nao wants to cackle. These men are truly far too kind hearted to be marines in this world. Here they all are—four widely revered men within the marines—flinging out excuse after excuse to justify momentarily betraying the world government that they were pretty much stationed to protect. It's funny, really, to look at all the under-the-table actions these men have done to stay true to their morals, and not a single one of them knows what the others have hidden.

(For fuck's sake, the amount of treason they've all committed is almost _comical.)_ Garp's sheltering the goddamn _son_ of the same Pirate King who nearly toppled the entire world's stability with a few words spoken on the execution stand. Kuzan had risked his entire livelihood to create an escape path for Robin, the only girl whose ability could quite literally set off a war that the likes of this world has never witnessed before. Rosinante would soon practically defect from the same institution that had saved him as a child for the sake of a sickened kid whose likelihood of surviving was practically _zero_. And while Sengoku had never done anything firsthand, his purposely blind eye towards all of his fellow marines' justice-fueled defections might as well have been counted as treason too.

Nao is glad that these fools are the ones that she's momentarily settled in with. Having waited for everyone else to discreetly put in their two cents, it's now her turn to try to convince Kuzan to piss off the World Government once again.

"You know… I hear it's a _real_ nice time to go bike riding on the sea—"

Nao never gets to finish her own suggestion. Kuzan is already privy to what the 'right thing' to do in this situation is.

"I get it," Kuzan cuts her off, deadpanning the occupants in the room as a response to their not-so-concealed desires for him to go and sabotage whatever it is that Akainu might order a fleet of marines to do. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to go on a short trip."

No one wants to admit it, but a certain wave of relief has washed over the others in the room. They no longer have to fret over the possibility of becoming accessories to _another_ genocide committed by a group formed to _protect_ innocent citizens.

"Thanks for the information, Rosi," Sengoku speaks into the Den Den Mushi, absolutely aware that he's participating in a conspiracy against another admiral.

"No problem… Kuzan, Nao, I'll see you guys in Flevance in a week's time." He hangs up without waiting for a reply of affirmation.

Kuzan sighs, reaching his hand up to his face to fix the placement of his glasses. He walks past Nao, momentarily placing his hand on her head as he reaches Garp's desk. Taking off the coat usually draped over his shoulder and placing it down.

"I'm assuming this is something I'm doing _off_ -duty?"

Garp nods, and Kuzan sighs.

He walks past Nao once again, this time heading for the door. She watches his movements carefully, unsure if she's completely processed everything yet. With one hand up, he beckons her to come with him using a single, short movement of the fingers.

"Come on, kid. Let's see just how much I've taught you."

* * *

 **OoooooOOO it's time for another adventure, and the little bit of peace Nao had found is about to come to an end. :( I hope you guys enjoy the characters' interactions, though.  
**

 **Did you guys expect for there to be more survivors in Flevance? Who do you think is involved? :D**

 **I hope you guys had a little bit of fun reading this chapter! Please leave a review, I'd love to see how many people have stuck around. (And it'd motivate me a heck of a lot more.)**

 **Have a great day!**


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